Angry in the Great White North
The Income Trust Scandal: The twisted logic of a true believer
Thursday, December 29, 2005 at 12:03 AM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

From Liberal for Life:

I want Jack Layton to step down while the RCMP investigates his moustache
Wednesday, December 28, 2005

That's about as stupid an idea as asking Ralph Goodale to step down while the income trust affair is being investigated. Of course that's the way the opposition likes to do things, Guilty until proven innocent.

I should call up the RCMP under the false name Miguel Sanchez and tell them Stephen Harper and Monte Solberg have been running drugs for years. Then by their own logic they'd be forced to step down while the investigation takes place.

Please Canadians: buy a clue and vote the Liberals back to majority!

If after a review of the allegations, the Mounties found enough evidence to justify an official investigation of either Jack Layton's moustache, or of the drug running activities of Stephen Harper or Monte Solberg, then they should step down.

Duh.

But a review would conclude quickly that any such allegation is nonsense, and no investigation would be initiated. Unless it was an investigation of criminal mischief by Mr Sanchez.

The review of the income trust situation came to a very different conclusion.

It's not about the determination of guilt, or the presumption of innocence. The court of law provides for those. It's about earning, retaining, and protecting the public trust. Protecting the public trust even at the expense of your job.

Normally, I ignore the sort of non-thinking exhibited by Liberal for Life. But the announcement of an RCMP investigation is yet another blow to the Liberal campaign, and perhaps the biggest one so far. It's hard to imagine it getting any worse.

How does something like this affect the "true believer"? Someone who is an uncritical supporter, utterly unable to imagine the Liberal Party doing anything wrong, without it being a setup or a conspiracy, or blown out of proportion, or already fixed and thus a distraction from the "important" issues.

Well, we've just seen an example. It's not pretty.

For the more critical Liberal supporter, the response is more reasoned and more gloomy:

On The Bright Side...

...no one's going to be talking about Klander much.

This is HUGE. Martin will use the "can't comment on an RCMP investigation" line and I doubt we'll find out much else before voting day, but the mere fact that Goodale's office is being ivestigated [sic] is a massive blow to the Liberals. It's also an absolutely golden way for Harper to switch to "Phase 2" and the corruption issue which I've always assumed was his intention for the second half of the campaign.

That makes a lot more sense. Of course, the Liberal Party is better served, in the long term, by members of the second sort instead of the first. While the first can always be counted on for a donation and a vote, the second can be counted on for honesty.

If the Liberal Party is going to survive this unending stream of scandals and gaffes, they are going to have to find a way to fill their collective reserve of honesty, which seems to have gone dry quite some time ago.

Main Story

Search for more opinions from Canadian bloggers on these related keywords