Angry in the Great White North

I'm not being sarcastic.

Jason Cherniak deserves our gratitude.

When the story first broke, Stephen Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald stunned Canada's political junkies with this amazing revelation concerning Liberal Party infighting so severe that the Outremont by-election might become a casualty in the battle:

Michael Ignatieff supporters are sabotaging Liberal efforts in the Outremont byelection in hopes of weakening Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, Dion loyalists say.

Dion loyalists suspect Liberal organizers who support Mr. Ignatieff have been undermining the campaign, hoping that a loss would force Mr. Dion out of the leadership once Liberals realized that he couldn't deliver seats in Quebec.

"I only know what I see, and I see some suspicious stuff," said one Liberal worker on the ground.

The Dion people say organizers in the riding have made a series of bizarre, counterproductive moves.

"There's one of two options," said one source close to Mr. Dion. "There's some folks there who are either grossly incompetent or intentionally malicious."

Dion loyalists are leaning toward the second option.

One source close to Mr. Dion.

Who? How close? Everyone has a theory, but Jason Cherniak was gutsy enough to challenge the legitimacy of the source altogether:

Meanwhile, from now on I will trust no anonymous source unless the reporter specifically states that he or she spoke to the source in person or over the phone. Clearly, it is too easy to plant fake stories with fake email accounts. Since they are anonymous, there is no way for the person who supposedly informed the reporter to ever deny it, because he or she would never know that he or she is the supposed source!

I don't even know that I believe the initial Halifax Chronicle report that supposedly had a person "close to Dion" blaming "Ignatieff supporters" for throwing the election. Again, it could have easily been the same fake emailer.

Burning the midnight oil (and possible egged on by Stephen Taylor), Jason has confirmed it for us:

UPDATE AT 1:02AM MONDAY

I have confirmation that the source for the initial Chronicle article was not the fake email account.

We owe Jason a debt of gratitude. Until he took it on to challenge the legitimacy of the source, there was always a nagging doubt in our minds that someone might have been playing games with Stephen Maher. Certainly those doubts were strongest in Liberals themselves, who might have been able to take some solace in the belief that the article was wrong, that Stephane Dion's people weren't bad-mouthing Michael Ignatieff's people, and that these same people close to Stephane Dion were not foolish enough to go public with these sorts of allegations, to air this dirty laundry only days before the by-election itself.

A belief that no one who worked for Stephane Dion would have thought this somehow helped Stephane Dion instead of pushing his leadership closer to an ignominious conclusion, a belief buoyed by a suspicion that the anonymous source in the article was really not a Liberal close to Stephane Dion.

I could have argued that the story made sense, and that I believed it to be true. But as a Tory supporter, no Liberal would be swayed.

Only Jason Cherniak, a respected Liberal blogger and a key supporter of Stephane Dion, could deliver the news that the article was based on solid information, and be believed by Liberals, Conservatives, NDP supporters, and everyone else.

Now that the suspicion that the article was fundamentally untrue has been utterly dispelled, we can go back to considering just what a senior Stephane Dion confidante was thinking when he spoke to the press to make such serious accusations against fellow Liberals, and what Stephane Dion is going to do about it.

I suppose a lot depends on whether Outremont goes to the Jocelyn Coulon of the Liberals or to Thomas Mulcair of the NDP, and if it goes to the NDP, on what Michael Ignatieff and other senior Liberals say to the press when the inevitable question of Stephane Dion's leadership comes up.

Check out other entries from the Outremont category
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