Posted on 04/08/2005 6:44:25 AM PDT by GMMAC
Liberals full of repugnant excuses:
Only cure for massive self-delusion over Adscam is long period in opposition
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 08 Apr 2005, Page: A18
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
To hear turncoat MP and Liberal Public Works Minister Scott Brison tell it, the Conservatives and the other opposition parties are going after the Adscam affair so vigorously because they are out to destroy the nation.
On Tuesday, Brison insisted the furor over the testimony of ad agency executive Jean Brault -- then under a publication ban -- and the threat of an early election were "difficult to understand," unless seen as "an attempt to destroy Canada and the reputation of the government."
Thursday in the House of Commons, after the ban had been lifted, Brison repeated his accusation. This whole flap was nothing more than an attempt to "destroy the reputation of federalists and destroy Canada!"
Ah, yes. Ain't the perversions and twists of Liberal logic a thing o' beauty?
Here is how it goes: The buckets and buckets of taxpayers' cash poured into Liberals' friends' pockets in Quebec -- and now, as we know from Brault, into Liberal party coffers, too -- the envelopes of unmarked bills slipped into fundraisers' hands, the piles of cash left on restaurant tables and picked up by Liberal bagmen while ad executives excused themselves to go the washroom (Who wouldn't need to wash after dining with a Liberal bagman?), the phoney invoices, the untraceable donations, the Liberal employees put on ad firm payrolls and paid with public funds while they continued to work exclusively for the Liberal party -- none of that damaged the reputations of federalists.
None of that hampered the cause of national unity. None of that revived the moribund separatist movement in Quebec.
According to Brison and most other Liberals, it is the opposition's scurrilous insistence on publicizing all this corruption that has put the country at risk. Liberal malfeasance is benign, but opposition disclosure, well, that's a "dangerous game" that's "good for the separatists," but not for Canada.
Actually, if you're a Liberal, this ludicrous line of thinking probably makes sense to you.
Because Liberals, in their own minds, routinely confuse their party's interests with the country's and because, as a result, they have managed to convince themselves that theirs is the only party capable of keeping the country whole, they have come to see any attack on the Liberal party as an attack on Canada.
It is not a ploy or a political strategy, either. Liberals like Brison are not merely pretending to believe national unity is in peril if their party is attacked. They honestly believe this self-delusion. It is not a feint cynically calculated to draw voters away from an ugly truth, yet one Liberals privately know to be untrue. They sincerely see themselves as the glue that holds the country together, so they honestly believe if the glue is imperilled the country is, too.
The only thing that will break them of this hallucination is a long, long period in opposition, during which they could see the country run by someone else without it disintegrating or its values being destroyed.
Recall that when this scandal first broke the surface in the spring of 2002, then-prime minister Jean "I Got Golf Balls" Chretien told a Liberal fundraising dinner in Winnipeg, "Perhaps there was a few million dollars that might have been stolen in the process. ... But how many millions and millions of dollars have we saved to the country because we have re-established the stability of Canada as a united country?"
Don't blame us, we were saving a country -- our own political skins had nothing to do with it. It's staggering how little this repugnant excuse has changed in the past three years.
Thursday, when the ban on Brault's testimony was lifted, Canadians learned his firm alone funnelled $1.1 million from public contracts to the Liberal party and its candidates, without proper disclosure under election finance laws. And Brault's firm was just one of eight in Adscam.
Yet the Liberal party now maintains it was an unknowing "target of fraud," the victim of an elaborate scheme by some "parallel" organization pretending to be the Liberal party. And here's the most galling part: The Liberals contend that even though this parallel group was populated by people who were Liberals, they were not acting on its behalf, nor did it have knowledge of their actions or benefit from them.
Yeah, right, and the mafia is just a fraternal organization that received a bad rap because criminals infiltrated it and used its good name to cover their dastardly deeds.
I think the Liberals may finally have sunk so low that even Ontario voters will be repulsed by them. (Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?)
Here's one last disquieting thought, though: The Liberals have promised to pay back all the illegal public money received by the party -- now estimated at as much as $3 million. But last year they passed legislation ensuring that political parties' operations and campaigns are now almost 90 per cent funded by tax dollars. Does that mean the Liberals will now get away with using taxpayer money to repay taxpayers for the tax dollars that were misappropriated to the party in Adscam?
At the very least, the Liberals should promise now to repay any monies from private donations for which no tax credits are issued.
Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer, National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Tele: (780) 916-0719 / E-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
the sooner the collapse the better, IMO
Liberals are liberals, no matter what country they are in. They smell the same, operate the same, cheat and lie the same...well, you know the rest.
And this is one of the countries our Washington elitists want to "unify into one continent" with the U.S. -- God help us.
Yet the Liberal party now maintains it was an unknowing "target of fraud," the victim of an elaborate scheme by some "parallel" organization pretending to be the Liberal party. And here's the most galling part: The Liberals contend that even though this parallel group was populated by people who were Liberals, they were not acting on its behalf, nor did it have knowledge of their actions or benefit from them.
Yeah, right, and the mafia is just a fraternal organization that received a bad rap because criminals infiltrated it and used its good name to cover their dastardly deeds.
LOL.
We all know Monica was a Republican plant in the Clinton WH and that Carl Rove planted the faked Bush ANG memos in mary Mapes' mailbox.
That post was supposed to be to GMMAC. I don't know how I managed to post it to you Pissant. Sorry.
I saw your screen name and just thought you were another pissant fan, naturally
LOL. Berger had those papers shoved in his socks with out his knowledge by Rove as well.
Interesting though that no one in Canada is very surprised.
Even the newscasters are laughing out loud while they report the latest breaking news on this story.
I think the nervous laughter may subside once Canadians wake up to the fact that Stephan Harper has to negotiate terms with the Bloc.
It must be hard for American Freepers to understand a political party like the Bloc, whose mandate is to break up Canada.
Never underestimate the power of the Fiberals in the Greater Toronto Area. Those are 40 seats (the rural periphery doesn't count) that are almost all universally Liberal and no poll suggests that will change, especially in the 416 area code.
The Conservatives need to focus on the rest of Ontario (including Northern Ontario - play the gun registry card?) and try to get as many of those 65 seats as they can. Then, if things go well, they should try to penetrate into the 905 area around Toronto.
Rove is truly an evil genius.
We're gonna need more Minutemen...
Separation will come from Alberta, not Quebec. The Quebeckers are just very smart and stick together when it comes to extorting the feds for cash.
I think even with the AdScam those GTA seats will not go away from the Liberals. That area is heavily 3rd world immigrant and they expect this sort of things from politicians. As long as the ethnic groups get federal money to fund their "ethnic dance troups" and "community halls" they will stick with the Liberals. Not even Paul Martin pulling a Micheal Jackson red handed would change that. No Joke.
It is amusing to watch them retreat on an issue. They rationalize and when trapped, they retreat a few steps and then attempt to regroup their defense with another rationalization; rationalize...retreat...rationalize... retreat and so on.
Eventually, they end up with the justification that so-and-so did it before and therefor it must be okay.
A traditional, yet refreshing, response.
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