Ya gotta admit he's got a point. We all remember Shifty Harper's feigned indignation when he supposedly found out about the Wright/Duffy affair hatched in his very own Prime Minister's Office. Why he was so outraged that some time after Chief of Staff Nigel Wright resigned, Harper fired Wright as his Chief of Staff, indignantly claiming he'd been betrayed.
He couldn't fire Benny Perrin. He fled Ottawa months earlier. But he could have fired another of the plot participants only Steve chose that betrayer, Ray Novak, to become his new Chief of Staff.
Obviously that doesn't make any sense, especially for a prime minister seeking to make the laughable claim that he knew nothing about this dastardly scheme perpetrated behind his back.
You might even say, after reviewing a few dozen emails, give or take a few dozen, that elevating one of the plotters to the top position from which you had just fired another of the plotters for plotting in your office behind your back could be tantamount to an admission that you were in on it, in up to your neck, all the time. Wright was window dressing, damage control.
So, enter J.T., with the entirely obvious demand that Harper now jettison his current plotter Chief of Staff. We know from the emails and from Wright's statement to the federales that Novak was in on it and, if Steve's to be believed (he's so not), he was betrayed by Novak just as he was betrayed by all the others in the PMO, in the Senate and in the Conservative Party, and yet he punished Novak by promoting him to Chief of Staff, his most trusted aide.
Good for you, Justin. You've got Beelzebub by the cojones. Do yourself a favour, don't let go until he screams out a confession. Hang in there Justin.
Wouldn't that be dandy - Harper having to dump his Chief of Staff in the middle of an election campaign. Word I've heard from Ottawa going back several months ago is that Novak got the CoS post because no A-List talent were willing to take it after the way Harper mauled Wright as his human sacrifice.
While Trudeau is to be commended for pushing the idea, it was Bruce Anderson on At Issue, Wednesday, who stated it most succinctly. It was plain to see that Anderson was seething. As a 'real' conservative he and his ilk are far more dangerous to Harper.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I wasn't aware of that. I agree with your conclusion. It's not going to take much - a shift of 5 per cent, perhaps - and Harper's bid for another term is down the toilet. This is the sort of thing that makes people reluctant to vote at the best of times just stay home.
ReplyDeleteOne could puckishly argue, Mound, that Harper is hesitant to acquiesce in Trudeau's demand given the distinct possibility there is no more room under the Tory bus.
ReplyDeleteBy the time Bayne is done, it'll take DNA testing to sort the bodies beneath that bus, Lorne. The emails are bad enough but the one Wright "redacted" isn't the only one that was culled from what I hear.
ReplyDeleteThen there's at least one tape recording.
Perrin, LeBreton, Novak, Stewart-Olsen, Gerstein and Arthur Hamilton are supposedly in for a thrashing. Steve may find himself the last man standing just in time for the election. I hope.
Remind me - we are still having an election,aren't we?