Interesting analysis by my Carleton U. friend Pete. Worth a read.

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Well, not really: I’m the “et al” they refer to, apparently.

But a win’s a win!  “Dismissed with costs,” and, per tradition, without reasons given. After 16 long years, the CBC and I have finally emerged victorious: former diplomat and far-Rightist Ian V. Macdonald, meanwhile, has lost.  Our thanks to the fine legal minds of Scott Hutchinson and Brennagh Smith at Stockwoods.  They kick ass.

Now, who’s going to buy me a celebratory drink?  It’s almost the end of Lent, and I can swill ale again!

Woot!

UPDATE:  Ottawa Citizen story here.

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Coming from Quebec is “a fatal liability.” Who knew?

What about you guys? Did you know being a Quebecker is “fatal” in politics?

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We’ve won at every court level for more than a decade: we’ll see if we win at the high court, soon enough!

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Since I was a kid – since this day in 1972, in fact, when I started writing a daily journal – I have always taken note of April 4, and said to myself:  “April 4.  Dr. King.”

Today, 44 years ago, Martin Luther King was murdered by a racist in Memphis.  Dr. King was a giant of man, the one who – as I write in my upcoming book – anticipated the message at the core of the Occupy movement, among other things.  While his message continues to resonate across the decades, the violence of racial hatred continues unabated, too.

It’s April 4, and so I give you some of his most remarkable speech.  Surveying the pygmies who now crowd the public stage, I don’t think we will see the likes of him again.

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Don’t be fooled by their bullshit: the Ontario PCs and NDP want to have an election.

They’d better be careful what they wish for. They just might get it.

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Hit him again. Put him down. Make him bleed.

Not many of them will admit it, but that’s what a lot of partisans were hoping for when Liberal MP Justin Trudeau and Conservative Sen. Patrick Brazeau squared off in an Ottawa boxing ring over the weekend. Someone said the match had something to do with raising money for charity, but I’m willing to bet no one — not the guys, anyway — gave that part much thought.

This fight was about something a bit more primeval. It was about visceral, gut-level, deep-down stuff that political partisans regularly feel for one another. If you were to say it was about hate, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

Politics, stripped down to its essence, is like boxing. Get in a ring, beat each other to a bloody pulp as people sit on the sidelines and cheer.

That’s why so many guys are drawn to it, and why so many gals are not. It’s a vicious and ugly avocation, one that tries to dress itself up in finery of statesmanship. But women — being smarter than men — know what politics is. It’s schoolyard brawling that pretends it isn’t.

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For instance, if Ms. Wilkie’s tweet was so offensive, why did Wildrose staffers instantly begin retweeting it? Why did they want to ensure that the breathtakingly immature comments of a low-level staffer in the Premier’s Calgary office to a small number of followers got wider play? For partisan political reasons? That would be a reasonable conclusion.

And when you learn that some officials on Ms. Smith’s campaign started contacting reporters about the tweet and providing information about Ms. Wilkie’s role in Ms. Redford’s office you become even more suspicious about Wildrose’s motivations. They wanted a story. And when no media bit, Ms. Smith sent out a news release the next day.

It instantly created sympathy for Ms. Smith and made the Redford camp look mean and heartless. Ms. Redford’s call to Ms. Smith to apologize shortly after the release went out was unquestionably sincere, but by then the damage had been done.

On Sunday, Wildrose didn’t want to talk about the issue. And perhaps it shouldn’t. The sooner this incident is forgotten, the better.

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Spoke to a friend this morning who has known, and worked with, many Trudeaus:

“I knew he’d win. Those guys never do anything unless they know in advance that they’ll win.”

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Wish it wasn’t. But it is.

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