Stephen Harper Up to His Armpits

On Friday May the 24th Justin Trudeau said; 

"The Prime Minister is in it, up to his armpits." 

But, he did not say what exactly he was in, up to his armpits. 

Personally I thought he meant Kent. 

Which my friends & I have made synonymous with Sh*t. 

Guess who I caught messin' round out behind the barn?

Luckily ~ I had my Camera.

Stephen Harper
Both Incremental and Excremental

Less than ten seconds after I heard the news that Nigel Wright, chief of staff at the Prime Minister's Office had sent Senator Mike Duffy a cheque for $90,172.oo to cover his fraudulent expense claims for housing in Ottawa, I was on the phone to a political friend. We both knew that this would have Harper up to his armpits in what we like to call 'Kent', although you may know it better as Shit!

I had long thought Stephen Harper was stupid and I had long since known that Mike Duffy was none too bright, but I actually thought that Nigel Wright was cut from a different kind of cloth. Thanks, Nigel for proving me wrong.

There really is no point in retelling this story in all it's strange and wonderfully glorious details.
Much has been written about it in the last two weeks
but please let me tell you a few details that may have escaped you.
I promise to Try to keep it interesting.

You probably know already the strange story of how the unlikely Mike Duffy was made a Senator, but let me give you recollection of it. It was because of the interview which was conducted by Steve Murphy the News Anchor at CTV Halifax. He (Murphy) interviewed Stephan Dion, the Liberal leader at the time, shortly before the 2008 federal election.

Murphy who was in my opinion always an insufferable Conservative boor  asked Stephan Dion an impossible and hypothetical question which was worded in such a way as to be confusing to a man whose first language was markedly Francais Canadien. The question was not only hypothetical but it was in several tenses, past and present and terribly confusing.

Here is that Question:
 "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?"

Anyway, Dion stumbled and asked Steve to repeat the question which Murphy did. But instead of making it clearer he made it, if anything more confusing. After several attempts including several times out to see if he could get a sensible question out of the insufferable Murphy, Stephan finally got the general gist of the very odd question and gave what he thought was a sufficient answer.

Now, I saw it live, so to speak, and CTV Halifax played the edited version without the outtakes. But since this was the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada during a Federal election campaign they sent the whole thing off to to the CTV National Bureau and it fell into the 'oh so unethical' hands of Mike Duffy and he did some creative editing and played it all,  false starts including out-takes, time outs and all. This editing included scathing criticism which (and which I cannot now find) he added after the fact as a narrative which made Stephan Dion look ridiculous in the extreme. It was only an hour later that it was on CTV Halifax Nightly News and it of course was the version Duffy edited.

Long story made short. As a result of this strange interview and Mike Duffy's lack of integrity Dion was done like Dinner. And this in spite of the fact that he had a plan to bring the Kyoto accord up to speed, through a well thought carbon tax and the fact that he saw the 2008  recession coming a mile off, unlike Jim Flaherty who was later completely blindsided by it.

The Dion Debacle - The Day After

CBC: CTV broke ethics code in Dion interview:  Standards Council................."

"The arbiter of ethics on the airwaves ruled Wednesday that CTV violated industry codes when it included three false starts in a broadcast of an election interview with then Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found CTV Atlantic's 6 p.m. newscast was "discourteous and inconsiderate" when it ran the awkward false starts after the anchor promised Dion they wouldn't be broadcast.
It also found the question that was put to Dion "confusing."

After Mike Duffy had been made a Senator I put a statement which I knew wasn't true, intentionally in a blog article saying that Steve Murphy once attacked the Dalai Lama, just to see if it got a reaction. It did and I soon received an email from Murphy, which quickly turned into this conversation.

Note: The Ad Campaign, I refer to in this email was a series of Ads depicting Steve Murphy at the Halifax Harbour, standing next to a "Tall Ship" and going on about his unending love and respect for Canada. It was launched within a week of the Dion (Mugging) interview and I was convinced at the time as I still am, that it was a direct response to the bad press this incident inspired aimed at Murphy's incompetence and lack of professionalism and integrity. 

Funny.
He didn't add that the question was even slightly odd?

Related Links

Duffy resigns from Conservative caucus

Ethics watchdog reviewing payment to Duffy

Harper’s failure to address Senate scandal is hurting his party: Editorial

Wallin quits Conservative caucus

2013-05-25 - The Chronicle Herald Editorial Cartoon

This is a Tweet I sent out to after Harper finally spoke after seven days to his caucus only and after having invited the press corps, took no questions from them before flying off to Peru to talk trade.

This week in Pictures @ The Twain Shall Meet

Let's See This Again, eh?