Shifty's Alternate Reality

It's the sort of thing usually only seen in adults if they're insane - alternate reality. Maybe that's the answer to Shifty Harper's make believe take on the Duffy-Wright scandal.

The term he's using is to "refuse the premise" that anyone other than Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy were in on the under-the-table cash for expenses deal.  It doesn't make any difference how many emails his government was forced to turnover to the RCMP showing that's not the case.  It doesn't matter if you simply "refuse the premise."

Harper “refused the premise” of questions about Novak’s involvement with Nigel Wright and Duffy, but declined to say what exactly was wrong with the premise of the question.

Instead, Harper repeated that he believes there are only two people involved in the scandal, Duffy and Wright. This despite new emails and evidence released during the Duffy trial showing that several senior members of the PMO, Conservative senators, and Harper himself were in the loop at various points in the discussions between Wright and Duffy.

A reporter pointed out the questions were based on emails and facts not in dispute in Duffy’s ongoing criminal trial — that his senior staff were involved in writing “media lines” that misled the public about Duffy’s repayment.

The Conservative leader was asked if he has a responsibility to “clean house” after the revelations.

“I don’t accept that particular rendition of the facts,” Harper responded. “What I know is this, that Mr. Duffy should have repaid his expenses, he did not. He did not because Mr. Wright paid them for him. These are the two individuals responsible. They are being held accountable. And that is what is appropriate.”

Talk about manna from heaven for the opposition leaders.  Harper has painted himself into a corner. There's no way out for him. He has to keep bleating out a fable that is utterly contradicted by testimony and documentary evidence that's now before a court of law, very little of it in dispute - except by Shifty - for what reeks of utter desperation. 

Think about it. If there was something else he could say that would take him off the hook, he would. He'd say it just as often as he possibly could.  But there isn't anything. He boxed himself in a long time ago and the only thing he can say now that would be believable is the one thing he can't say, the truth.

I've been struck by how campaign appearance photos of Harper show a tired character seemingly resigned to not being in control of this election as he always was before. He has no means to make this go away and all he can do is repeat a blatant lie that becomes more preposterous with each telling.

It almost suggests that his spin meisters have thrown up their hands and started looking for new clients.  I wonder if we're about to witness a prime ministerial meltdown?

How is he going to "refuse the premise" when, one after another, Novak, Perrin, LeBreton, Tkachuk, Stewart-Olsen, Gerstein and Arthur Hamilton are compelled to take their turn in the witness box and take their turn getting thoroughly "Bayned."  For a Conservative loyalist this must be stomach-churning and it's only going to get worse over the course of probably most of the election campaign. Harper not only shows himself pathologically deceitful but he's starting to look unhinged.

I just hope Shifty isn't spending his sleepless nights watching old Samurai movies: