The Income Trust Scandal: The Liberal Party website grinds to a halt
The Conservative Party website is headlining the Income Trust Scandal, focusing on the effect on the Liberal Party:
>>>Income Trust Scandal Rocks Liberals<<<
The NDP website is headlining the Income Trust Scandal, focusing on what the NDP sees as Ralph Goodale's imminent resignation:
>>>When will he step aside? Ralph watch: 2 days<<<
The Liberal Party website is headlining the Income Trust Scandal, focusing on Ralph Goodale's innate honesty:
>>> <*cough* *cough*><<<
Take two!
The Liberal Party website is headlining the Income Trust Scandal, focusing on the lack of solid evidence:
>>> <*cough* *cough*><<<
Take three!
The Liberal Party website is headlining the Income Trust Scandal, focusing on the way the opposition parties have blown this out of proportion:
>>> <*cough* *cough*><<<
OK, the Liberal Party website has remain completely unchanged. Frozen in time from December 24. Even Scott Feschuk's blog has not been updated in days.
Why does this matter? The party website is a means to get a message out without the selective filtering of the main stream media. On any major issue, and the Income Trust Scandal certainly counts, the party has to explain to its supporters (and to the curious visitor) their side of the story.
So what can we make of the fact that the Liberals are entirely silent via the website?
One possible reason is that the Liberals are keeping to the promise not to campaign through the Christmas break, and that includes updating the website. I don't buy it. First, Paul Martin has been electioneering in Montreal. Second, the scandal is just too important, especially to leave the Conservative and NDP attacks unanswered.
Perhaps a faction that believes that ignoring the problem means it will go away in a couple of days. I happen to think that strategy will fail, but besides my opinion, Paul Martin has been telling reporters that he stands by his minister, and Ralph Goodale has been saying there was no leak. If this faction was running the show, Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale would both be saying something along the lines that no comment should be made until the RCMP delivers its findings.
I think this silence reflects the confusion within the Liberal Party itself. At the highest levels, or so it is rumoured, the strategists are at odds about what to do. What to do about Goodale. What to do about the press. What do to about the opposition.
What to do about a campaign that seems to have come apart at the seams.
Until they can decide on a strategy and can craft a message, the Liberals will have no message to deliver. That leaves the field open to the Conservatives and the NDP to frame the debate. In the meantime, I will continue to watch the website. When it updates, it will be the first clue, and perhaps the best clue, to tell us who is running the show now.
In the meantime, the lack of official reaction does not reflect well on the ability of Paul Martin's Liberals to lead in a crisis.
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Comments
I'm not sure the Liberals can do anything. They were all laid off for the Christmas break, weren't they? If they started working they would have to go back on the party payroll. The public servants would risk being accused of using public paycheques to campaign.
Posted by: Kevin Steel at December 30, 2005 06:32 PM
Now they're playing by the rules?!
Posted by: Angry in T.O. at December 30, 2005 06:34 PM
I think it is the Liberal version of "Deer in the Headlights"........... "Pigs at the Trough"
Posted by: Syncrodox at December 30, 2005 06:47 PM
I'm with Kevin on this one.
They were quite public about not allowing the troops to "double-dip". On the other hand, the work week would end tonight, so someone could get back to work as soon as tomorrow. Of course, given the e-mails you reported looking for a cash infusion, maybe they can't afford to pay anyone until next year?...
Posted by: Another Sean at December 30, 2005 06:57 PM
Angry, nothing gets published because no-one is in charge. Panic city. Remember Paul explaining how Belinda was not a political decision? Everyone laughs out loud.
My bet is they is looking for a fall guy. Goodale apparently does not want to be the loyal soldier, so they are looking for a mid level flunkie to take the fall. Someone high enough to pacify the wolves, but low enough not to tear apart the party. Someone who is not a joke. Problem is, as time goes by, you need a bigger name to prevent the guffaws. Bye bye Goodale. Bye bye Saskatchewan.
I'm guessing the party is already coming apart at the seams; everybody in the criminal conspiracy formerly known as the Liberal Party of Canada is calculating how to protect their own butt. Who can you trust?
There are Liberals trying to figure out exactly what the RCMP knows. Be a shame to sacrifice a leaker only to discover that the cops are looking in another place. But if you give up the right guy, he goes directly to jail, and his boss, well his boss's career is over.
Posted by: john at December 30, 2005 07:14 PM
Martin----speaking to reporters after a visit to a Montreal mosque---is reported (about 5pm MST Friday 30th Dec) on CBC website as saying "several people" in the PMO knew about the announcement re: Income Trusts beforehand, including himself. This, he said, is normal. He went on to defend Goodale again, and say that this was all based on Oppositon allegations in an election campaign.
I think we've just seen the new line for the rest of the campaign: anything the other side says is merely campaign rhetoric. What WE say is the truth because we are the State, the State is US!
Posted by: Patrick B at December 30, 2005 07:25 PM
Nixon Martin?
It's the 6 day Gap.
Are the lights on in the Langevin Block? Is G-G on standby? Is the Canal frozen yet? Who is tending the red telephone? Where is Goodale? Is there a crisis in the governance of Canada? Crisis watch?
Canadian history is being written by bloggers.
Posted by: maz2 at December 30, 2005 07:48 PM
Paul is right in the respect that opposition allegations are campaign rhetoric. He can trust voting public is still in the mood for stonewalling.
As long as we trust Paul, what can go wrong?
But RCMP criminal investigations are not rhetoric. The police don't trust anybody. Or does Paul know something about the cops that we don't?
Somehow it is fitting that the word "Trust" goes to the heart of the election.
Posted by: john at December 30, 2005 07:53 PM
"When asked if the alleged leak could have come from the PMO, the prime minister didn't give a direct answer."
Is Ralph refusing to fall on his sword??? Have things gotten so bad that PM is contemplating sacrificing someone from the PMO to stop the bleeding???
Will it turn out to have been an "innocent" mistake??? ( Staffer A... " I happened to mention it to my dear, sweet Grandma who only trades on sundays"..........)
If this continues to have legs watch for the pre-emptive "confession" along with the suitable dollop of feigned contrition.
Posted by: Syncrodox at December 30, 2005 08:23 PM
Anybody with a "confession" better have a real good lawyer. Or find a liberal judge. heh heh!
Go thou post haste to Kinsella. Sir Warren sayeth the campaign tis done. The kingdom rejoiceth.
Posted by: john at December 30, 2005 08:49 PM
And still 35 percent of the Canadian voting public will vote Liberal...........how stupid is that?????????
Posted by: themaj at December 31, 2005 01:08 PM
Re: mid-election Liberal party scandals, don't forget that the Liberal-appointed Supreme Court is a scandal that hangs on Paul Martin. See analysis below:
THE SUPREME COURT’S ORGY DECISION
Dr Ruth E Dubin, in her letter to the Post, pointed out correctly that there are indeed harmful consequences that can come from an excess of multi-partner sexual activity, and that some practices have higher levels of harmful effect than others. Sexually transmitted diseases are serious life-altering diseases, and are particularly pernicious because people are often unaware they have them and so transmit them onwards far and wide in a multiple-partner lifestyle. The aids epidemic has reached holocaust proportions and many of us older people remember when it was a rare disease restricted to a small particular population. One must assume the judges of the Supreme Court, appointed mostly by Liberal Party PM’s, also remember how rare aids once was, and so it is particularly puzzling how they would come up with a ‘no harm’-based decision on the question of the legality of orgies in public business places.
What people do in the privacy of their own home is one thing, but what people do for profit under a publicly-granted business license is another matter. A for-profit business has a built-in promotional interest and agenda, and so wife-swapping and orgies in a business establishment context are indeed public business. Despite the justices’ views, the fact remains that the more multiple-partner sex, the more chance of the spread of dozens of very harmful diseases. Judicial wisdom used to mitigate the spread of such harms would have resulted in a decision that left such sexual practices in the privacy of the home, rather than opening Canada up to for-profit clubs of this nature.
There are countries in the world, (Thailand comes to mind), that foster a significant sex industry as a way of generating foreign exchange in their economies. Such countries are also afflicted with very high rates of aids and other harms attendant to such an industry anywhere. In legalizing not only ‘sex for profit’ with this decision, but also group sex, that is orgies organized by businesses for profit, the Supreme Court (appointed by mostly Liberal governments), has allowed the advent of a whole new industry in Canada that will serve to turn Canada into one of those nations legally catering to the international sex trade.
The business models of the orgy clubs that will now spring up possibly in every mall, and certainly in every port city, will follow the logic of business competition and finally consolidation into two or three brand-name chains, as happens in any new lucrative market niche created, in this case, thanks to our Liberal-appointed Supreme Court. It is conceivable that Penthouse will run one chain and Hustler will offer a different brand of ‘swinging’ in another chain of franchises. The values of Paul Martin’s Liberal Party reflected in the Supreme Court appointments this party has made has opened up the possibility that Canada will become one of the world’s premiere sex-tourism destinations where the public advertising of orgy-based business establishments becomes part of Canada’s international tourism ‘cachet’.
Expansion of this new industry created by this liberal Supreme Court decision will be according to ‘what the market will bear’, and the market can be legally exponentially expanded by both advertising (pro-orgy propaganda) and solicitation of a vast international clientele. Will any of this create ‘harm’ to Canadian society and public health? The liberal one party state appointed justices of the court think not. If Canadians agree with this new sex industry trend in the Canadian identity and Canadian values, then vote for Paul Martin and the Liberal Party that has ruled Canada for most of its history.
Posted by: edward mills at December 31, 2005 03:27 PM
Here here Edward!
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Posted by: Brad in Barrhead at December 31, 2005 07:04 PM
 
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