I read James' post suggesting that having Luc Lavoie as a spokesman is a real blunder for Brian Mulroney. I'm not so sure that this isn't a pretty shrewd tactic.
Brian Mulroney likes to get his message out through underlings and fixers, like Luc Lavoie and Fred Doucet. I expect it's the deniability game. If Lavoie says something - and it backfires (as it has so often) - Mulroney can skirt the result by saying his underling was wrong. Much better than getting stuck with it personally.
Now if Mulroney is going to get a sympathetic ear anywhere, it's with Canada's uber-right media. Yes, I mean the National Disgrace. Sort of like how Cheney always gravitates to Fox News whenever he's looking for a compliant interviewer who will keep a straight face while he spins bullshit.
Not suprising Mulroney's latest "po-boy" refrain wound up being carried by Lavoie to the National Disgrace. Here's the latest. Yes, Karlheinz Schreiber met with Mulroney three times to pass cash-stuffed envelopes, each to the tune of $100,000, across a table to the boss. Why three envelopes? Why $100,000 each time? Easy. Each $100,000 was for one year's consulting fees for Mulroney helping Schreiber with a project to build military vehicles in Montreal and to establish a pasta business.
Yes, says Lavoie, Mulroney did accept the first cash retainer while he was still an MP for Baie Comeau but after Kim Campbell had succeeded him as prime minister.
Now the next line is that, because the delightful little bundles of cash were retainers, Mulroney wasn't obliged to report them as income right away. In other words, they only became income in the years in which they were earned. Okay.
And, on the thorny issue of when his boss did actually decide to run to RevCan and pay taxes on the "income," Lavoie punts and says that isn't anyone's "God damn business." Ooh, ouch! Sorry, Luc, but it is our goddamned business, Mulroney made it our business.
It was Mulroney who told counsel, under oath, that his involvement with Schreiber after leaving office had amounted to simply having coffee with the guy once or twice. Mulroney offered an account of their relationship and he can hardly now say it's the government's fault because they didn't ask if he'd pocketed any cash-stuffed envelopes from Schreiber.
Mulroney proferred an account demonstrably at odds with the current story now that incontrovertible facts have come out that certainly seem to contradict his testimony. So it's cut here and snip there and sand off these rough spots trying to make his account conform to the known facts and the more he does that, the more obvious everything becomes.
Brian Mulroney likes to get his message out through underlings and fixers, like Luc Lavoie and Fred Doucet. I expect it's the deniability game. If Lavoie says something - and it backfires (as it has so often) - Mulroney can skirt the result by saying his underling was wrong. Much better than getting stuck with it personally.
Now if Mulroney is going to get a sympathetic ear anywhere, it's with Canada's uber-right media. Yes, I mean the National Disgrace. Sort of like how Cheney always gravitates to Fox News whenever he's looking for a compliant interviewer who will keep a straight face while he spins bullshit.
Not suprising Mulroney's latest "po-boy" refrain wound up being carried by Lavoie to the National Disgrace. Here's the latest. Yes, Karlheinz Schreiber met with Mulroney three times to pass cash-stuffed envelopes, each to the tune of $100,000, across a table to the boss. Why three envelopes? Why $100,000 each time? Easy. Each $100,000 was for one year's consulting fees for Mulroney helping Schreiber with a project to build military vehicles in Montreal and to establish a pasta business.
Yes, says Lavoie, Mulroney did accept the first cash retainer while he was still an MP for Baie Comeau but after Kim Campbell had succeeded him as prime minister.
Now the next line is that, because the delightful little bundles of cash were retainers, Mulroney wasn't obliged to report them as income right away. In other words, they only became income in the years in which they were earned. Okay.
And, on the thorny issue of when his boss did actually decide to run to RevCan and pay taxes on the "income," Lavoie punts and says that isn't anyone's "God damn business." Ooh, ouch! Sorry, Luc, but it is our goddamned business, Mulroney made it our business.
It was Mulroney who told counsel, under oath, that his involvement with Schreiber after leaving office had amounted to simply having coffee with the guy once or twice. Mulroney offered an account of their relationship and he can hardly now say it's the government's fault because they didn't ask if he'd pocketed any cash-stuffed envelopes from Schreiber.
Mulroney proferred an account demonstrably at odds with the current story now that incontrovertible facts have come out that certainly seem to contradict his testimony. So it's cut here and snip there and sand off these rough spots trying to make his account conform to the known facts and the more he does that, the more obvious everything becomes.
One thing I don't get. LaVioe goes to the National Disgrace with a sob story about how Mulroney was all but broke when he left office. Poor fella! What I don't get is how does a guy in such embarrassed circumstances manage to get in his car, drive down to Montreal and buy a really big house for, oh, $1.6-million (March, 1993) and then throw another $1-million to renovate the old dump? Wouldn't you like to be that kind of poor? When you look at those numbers, Schreiber's $300,000 was chump change.
It's a good thing...Mr. LaVioe coming forward to defend BM. Hopefully others will add their voices as well.
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Yes, Luc is doing a wonderful job defending Brian Mulroney. If he digs that pit any deeper, Brian might just be able to pop in and disappear completely.
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