Angry in the Great White North

Small Dead Animals has the transcript, and it's a laugh a minute.

But here's the interesting thing. Read this bit carefully:

Scott Reid: Because there are answers that you don't want dug-up, my friend.

Geoff Norquay: We weren't in office Scott, it happened on your watch!

Scott Reid: What is going on with your relationship with the former Commissioner of the RCMP?

Geoff Norquay: WE FIRED HIM!

Scott Reid: Really? I don't think so, that's actually not what he says, but, in any event, you guys have not done everything you could to get answers to the tough questions. The first event that Steven Harper did the day after the election was with the Commissioner of the RCMP. Something is OFF. Geoff, you guys could do more, you're doing less, there's a reason why, you know it.

At first, it sounds like an attack on the Conservatives, doesn't it? But I think the real target is former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli. When the Commissioner dropped the income trust investigation bombshell in the middle of the 2005-2006 election campaign, the Liberal Party was doomed.

Now why would the Commissioner want to help Stephen Harper win? The truth is he didn't. If you believe the announcement of the investigation was politically motivated, then the most likely explanation is that he was trying to make sure Paul Martin would lose. Revenge on Paul Martin from beyond the political grave, directed by none other than Jean Chretien.

So Scott Reid and others find themselves in opposition. In the mean time, the Conservatives inherit a mess inside the RCMP, and Zaccardelli is fired. Vulnerable, Reid and other descend on him, and Zarccadelli becomes the subject of suggestions of being too cosy with the Conservatives, of being a Conservative prop.

Which is really funny, because everyone in Ottawa knows Zaccardelli was a Liberal prop, or to be more accurate, a Chretien prop.

It doesn't fool anyone in the know, but it does have the effect of dragging Zaccardelli's name through the mud. Maybe that's where it belongs, but Reid and his friends are playing in the wrong mudpile.

I guess they're hoping to have their cake and eat it too. Take down a member of the Chretien faction, but at the same time hurting the Tories. The problem is that, as the exchange quoted shows, the logic required to make that work is strained beyond the breaking point.

Still, it's nice to see the Chretien-Martin war isn't over yet, and that it is still driving the Liberals to say ridiculous things.