Coyne's Sniveling Bullshit

No matter how often you may disagree with him, Andrew Coyne is not a complete idiot. He can, in fact, present himself as rather intelligent. But, when it comes to the Duffy verdict, he's taken leave of his senses and plunged headlong into petulance.

Coyne is, to use Nigel Wright's now famous word, "pissed" that Justice Charles Vaillancourt acquitted the Cavendish Cottager of all charges. Coyne's first sentence offers a window into what is to follow: "So it was all a dream."

Demonstrating that Coyne couldn't be bothered to read the reasons for judgment this unreliable scribe lashed out.

All of these things happened, and more. All that has changed is that a judge has decided that there was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that any of them were crimes, or at least that there was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Duffy intended to commit any crimes.

No, sorry Andrew. I'll you'll tuck your editorial sophistry back from whence you extracted it and read the judgment you'll find that on count after count the judge found no need to decide the purported offences on reasonable doubt. He found there was nothing blameworthy in Duffy's conduct. Nothing at all, boyo.

That's not to say Justice Vaillancourt didn't find plenty of misconduct, skulduggery, underhandedness, dirty dealing. Not at all. Only he didn't find that in Mike Duffy but in Stephen Harper, Nigel Wright, Ray Novak, the Tory Senate leadership.

Coyne is so pathetically desperate to make his case, to pillory Mike Duffy presumably to ease the sting felt by our now discredited, disgraced former prime minister, that he simply invents specious "facts" that were not in evidence, even when it becomes necessary to ignore or mistake real facts that were in evidence, findings that were made by the presiding judge - who, remarkably, seems to have a somewhat better standing in judicial ranks than Mr. Justice Coyne himself.

The notion that Duffy was some unwilling victim of a plot to force him to accept being “made whole” for his expenses is not only contrary to common sense — the only price he faced for not taking the money was that he would not get the money — but to the evidentiary record. It was an explicit and repeated demand of his lawyer.

Coyne hasn't read the judgment. He hasn't read the testimony of the witnesses. He hasn't read the emails. The evidentiary record, apparently, is whatever Coyne would like it to be.

Duffy may have sincerely believed he did nothing wrong, and that may have made him unwilling to admit he had. But there is nothing in the record to indicate that he was averse to taking the cheque.

There is a great deal in the record that Duffy was averse to taking the cheque. Some of it comes out of the mouth of Nigel Wright. It's in the emails. Only in Coyne's alternate universe is there "nothing in the record."

Hard to say just what Coyne's problem is. Does he just resent Duffy? Is he furious that Duffy has now made it harder for other shills, perhaps Coyne himself, to get a cushy seat in the red chamber? Maybe he should see if he can get himself a job on the bench. I can see it now...