KCCCC Day 9: scandals don’t matter anymore

— 08.10.2015 07:52 AM

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  • Yes, yes, yes: we all know.  Former Harper Chief of Staff Nigel Wright is back in Canada, getting ready to testify in the interminable Mike Duffy trial.  So what.  In the larger scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.
  • Two things.
  • One, Nigel Wright.  Almost two years ago, I wrote about him in the Sun.  Here’s what I wrote.
  • “Full disclosure: My ex-wife was Wright’s partner for many years. They met in the office of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.Wright and I didn’t socialize, me being a hardcore Alberta Liberal, and him being a hardcore Ontario Conservative. We weren’t friends.I didn’t ask my wife-to-be much about him. But, eventually, I learned a few things. A picture emerged.Nigel Wright was adopted and brought up in a loving, good family. His parents were not wealthy, and Wright worked hard for everything he got. He was a deeply religious Anglican who, for a time, contemplated the priesthood.He devoted himself to his studies and charitable causes, his faith and — almost as much — the Conservative party.

    Wright conquered on Bay St. as a lawyer and a dealmaker, to be sure, becoming a millionaire at a very young age. But blue Tory blood ran through his veins — and there are only a handful of unelected people in this country who gave as much to conservative causes. Fundraising, policy, organization: Nigel Wright did it all.

    On Tuesday, while Stephen Harper cast him as a liar and a wrongdoer in the privileged confines of the House of Commons, Nigel Wright maintained a stoic silence, as he has throughout this sordid affair. While the most powerful man in Canada attempted to destroy his reputation, Wright said nothing.

    Unable to believe what I was witnessing, I tweeted that he needed to fight back. Part of my motivation for doing so was empathy. During the federal Liberal civil wars, some of Paul Martin’s thugs had attempted to destroy the reputations of those of us who remained loyal to Jean Chretien. I knew a little of what Wright must be feeling.

    But, mostly, I could not believe this was happening to — of all people — Nigel Wright. If there is anyone of my generation who has devoted themselves more selflessly to the Conservative party, I do not know who it is.

    It goes without saying, I don’t know the full facts in the Senate scandal, which has become a cancer on the government. But I do know that blaming Nigel Wright for all of it is not merely dishonest — it is disgusting.”

  • Me and Nigel weren’t drinking buddies or anything, but I knew him by reputation.  And I knew him to be a decent and honest man.  He doesn’t deserve what Donald Bayne, Duffy’s lawyer, is going to be doing to him commencing this week.
  • That’s Nigel. But what about scandal? Does all this incessant histrionics about Duffy scandal stuff matter, at all? To me, it matters as much as any scandal does, these days: that is, not at all.
  • Here’s something else I wrote about the subject of scandal, back in March, with bonus caps to better express my exasperation:
  • “Scandal-mongering DOESN’T WORK.Cole’s Notes version as to why:1. The media/politico chattering class call EVERYTHING a scandal, and always append “gate” to the end of same, to no discernible effect.
    2. The public ALREADY think EVERYONE in politics is a crook, so the breathless revelation that someone involved in politics is a crook ISN’T A REVELATION TO THEM.
    3. Joe and Jane Frontporch, the aforementioned public, HAVE HEARD THE HYSTERIA AND HISTRIONICS TOO MANY TIMES, and don’t believe any of it UNTIL THE PERP IS LED AWAY IN AN ORANGE PANTSUIT AND HANDCUFFS.
    4. Joe and Jane believe THE REAL SCANDALS are things like the lack of a JOB, or having to lay in a hospital corridor to get HEALTH CARE, or spending BILLIONS ON SECURITY and deranged, lone-wolf fanatics still figure out a way to kill innocent people – those are THE REAL SCANDALS, not someone expensing something by bona fide mistake, or consensual adults with zipper problems.”
  • Bottom line: you can’t fabricate a scandal involving Nigel Wright.  And, even if I’m wrong, scandals don’t matter anymore.
  • Carry on as you were, which you were planning on doing anyhow.

Comments (24)

KCCCC Day 7: it’s the weekend, dammit

— 08.08.2015 08:16 AM

  

  • Up at the cabin FOR MY LAST WEEKEND AS A SINGLE GUY IN CANADA, so I’ll keep this one brief. You don’t pay me for this stuff, you know. 
  • Eastern Dipper Sinks Western Dippers: It’s hard, running a truly national political party, and Linda  McQuaig has reminded us why. From her perch in Deepest Rosedale, it seems Linda wants Tom Mulcair to (a) conduct the election campaign on a bicycle and (b) sink every NDP candidate in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Not smart. 
  • Fed-Prov Slugfest! The Wynne/Notley vs. Harper grudge match is something, but it ain’t something new. Remember Danny Williams vs. Paul Martin? Mike Harris vs. Jean Chretien? Several Dozen Premiers vs. Pierre Trudeau? These grudge matches happen all the time, and they aren’t usually in any way relevant. I don’t know of many Queen’s Park staffers (Liberal or PC) who have taken leaves of absence to work on the federal campaign.  That should tell you plenty. 
  • And the winner is…: No one! Those of us in the punditocracy love to declare winners – and hate it when we can’t. But the fact is there was no clear winner in Thursday’s leader’s debate: every one of them had ups and downs. Leaving the commentariat in a quandary, and leaving citizens to – SHOCK AND HORROR – make up their own minds!
  • Survey says: Per my theory that not as many people watched the Great Debate as you might think, I did a survey of my staff – at a, you know, political consulting firm. A quarter of them didn’t even watch it. With politically-inclined pals, the numbers – accurate 19 times out of 20 – were even higher: most watched the Jays sweep the Twins, or went to see Tom Cruise at the movies, or whatever. By the time the 2015 Long March Campaign™ is over, no one will remember that single debate, either. 

Comments (66)

KCCCC Day 6: the big debate

— 08.07.2015 07:26 AM

KCCCC5

 

    • First things first: you and I are weird.  We like politics.  We pay attention to politics. Normal people don’t.  And studies have been showing that debate audiences have been declining for decades.
    • Most people watch clips on TV, Facebook and Twitter, and think that is enough.  Based on last night’s show, they’re probably not wrong.
    • Three key things to remember before I provide you with my own tweeted clips.  
    • One, if very few people watched the debate, it will probably have very little long-term effect on attitudes.
    • Two, it came so early in the 2015 Long March Campaign that no one will remember it at the end.  (That’s a shame, given that it’s possibly the last time all four leaders are together.)
    • Three, it wasn’t very exciting.  It was pretty dull, in fact.
    • That all said, here’s my take on each leader, along with tweets about the proceedings.

Stephen Harper: When three professional politicians are attacking you for a couple hours, the best you can hope for is to keep the puck out of the net.  Harper did that.  He missed several opportunities to clobber the others, true, but he was effective hammering Trudeau on his position on terror, and bashing both Trudeau and Mulcair on their collective desire to talk about the Constitution.

Tom Mulcair: He wasn’t Angry Tom – he was Medicated Tom.  He. Talked. Like. This.  As such, you got the impression he was condescending (he was) and arrogant (he is).  His equivocation on ISIS/terror was sickening; his qualifications on unity were pretty despicable.  He was braggy about shutting down Parliament, rewriting Charters, and his eyes were scary-ola.  If there was a loser last night, it’s him.

Justin Trudeau: He was a drama teacher, once, and it sure showed.  He stuck to his lines, and he had clearly had been preparing for months.  There were slips, however, such as when he bizarrely referred to himself as “Mr. Trudeau,” or when he said “the Liberal Party has been very clear” on ISIS and terror. (Um, not quite.) His startling statement that the Liberal Party was “naive,” quote unquote, on foreign policy will be replayed in CPC and NDP attack ads from now until the end of time.

Elizabeth May: She was winning.  She was winning, big time, in fact.  For most of the debate, she was the most effective – seemed to know her facts, had the right tone, sounded the least doctrinaire.  She lost the pole position at the end, however, when she rhapsodized about Mu’ammar Qaddafi, and she suggested that ignoring ISIS will make them just go away.  In those segments, she was dishonest and reckless and had a truther-like weirdness.  A disappointment, because she’d been winning.

Sample tweets about each, gratis:

 


 


 


 

 


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Keef on the Fabs

— 08.06.2015 02:03 PM

I’m sure you’ve already heard the news today, oh boy – STONES’ KEITH RICHARDS DISSES SGT. PEPPER – but his actual quote is so wonderful, so Gallagher-brother-like, I had to post it here. It may come as a shock to all of you, but there’s nothing I love more than people prepared to smash all idols, defy the conventional wisdom, etc.  My favourite quote of all time, thusly, is this from Brendan Kennelly in The Book of Judas: “If you want to serve the age, betray it.”

Here’s Keef:

“The Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles,” Richards said. “But there’s not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away. Why not? If you’re the Beatles in the Sixties, you just get carried away – you forget what it is you wanted to do. You’re starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties – ‘Oh, if you can make a load of shit, so can we.'”


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