Sunday, September 08, 2013

Canada's Sonny Corleone



Scott Reid writes in The Ottawa Citizen that the Senate scandal has forced Stephen Harper to give the Prime Minister's Office a makeover. That makeover isn't merely cosmetic:

But the shakeup of his staff in favour of flinty longtime loyalists tells us not only that the prime minister is girding for war in the style of Sonny Corleone. It also provides clues about his inherent instincts as a leader, his gnawing distrust of many fellow Conservatives and even the truth behind that controversial cheque cut to Mike Duffy.

David Orchard wrote recently that Harper didn't engineer a merger with the Progressive Conservatives. He instigated a coup:

Thus came about what PC Senator Lowell Murray referred to as a “coup, similar to what we have seen in some countries, when the constitution is suspended and a new order ratified in a quick plebiscite.” The historic founding party of Canada — the party of Macdonald, Georges-Etienne Cartier, R.B. Bennett and John Diefenbaker, of the national railway, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Bank of Canada, the CBC and the creation of one country from sea to sea — ceased to exist. Its name and colours had been stolen by Mr. Harper and the Reform/Alliance party.

Harper works hard to present a kinder and gentler facade. But the man is neither kind nor gentle. And, when he's under attack -- as he is now, and more vulnerable than he has ever been -- you get a look at what the man is really like. The picture is far from flattering:

The prime minister is behaving like a man betrayed, like a leader who has determined he must re-evaluate who he can and cannot trust within his own coterie. And who has concluded that only those who share the blood oath of his own Reform Party roots are to be clutched close.

Harper's paranoia is now full blown -- just like Sonny Corleone. He might recall that things did not end well for Sonny.


8 comments:

The Mound of Sound said...

The pressure is on and Harper is revealing desperation. The PMO has been purged of the A-list talent. It's now become a bunker filled with lesser types chosen for their fanatical devotion to their leader.

Someone, presumably part of the Tory dissidents, leaked the information that the PMO and DoJ were tipped off that Access to Information demands on the Senate scandal were coming and that these documents then were erased or shredded.

To tell reporters that no documents exist is tantamount to an admission that Harper is so desperate to conceal his role in these events that he is willing to risk being found to have destroyed evidence of a criminal transaction between Wright and Duffy.

With a full-blown police investigation underway, who would so boldly destroy every report, letter, e-mail and scribble about Duffy-Wright? Either those documents have been destroyed or Harper is simply refusing his legal obligation to hand them over. But he's not claiming some sort of executive privilege. His PMO and the Department of Justice say they have no documents, none.

The opposition should be howling like a pack of wolves over this. Should be.

Owen Gray said...

Should be, Mound. But, so far, the silence is deafening. Unfortunately, there are no Nixon-like tapes.

But then Nixon erased those crucial eighteen minutes.

The parallels are striking.

Anonymous said...

Every organization, private or public, has file server and email server backups. Perhaps evidence, predating the public revelations of scandal, is stored on the backups?

Owen Gray said...

In Ontario, Anon, emails regarding gas plant cancellations -- which had supposedly gone down the memory hole -- were recovered.

Something tells me the record exits. It's just that the Harperites are doing their level best to hide it.

Anonymous said...

No doubt the shredders in the Parliament building, burn the midnight oil.

Many things seem to go missing, since Harper's so called majority, especially money, decency, democracy, ethics and morals.

The menace of Communist China looms over Canada. Harper just gave China, another oil company. This time it is Novus Energy.

Harper also gave the keys to our, oil sands, the rich resources in our High Arctic, mines, timber and our Canadian farmland. Harper also signed a deal with, the Communist China Army.

The younger generation say, this is the beginning of the New World Order. The opposition will remain silent, they are in on the plot. I laughed at them back then. Now I'm not too sure, if they aren't absolutely right.

Owen Gray said...

And the truth is, Anon, that Harper will not be voted out of office until the next generation band with enough of their elders to send him packing.

the salamander said...

.. looking closely at our prissy PM's recycled PMO pestilence.. one is struck by the fact that mainstream media is not laughing him out of office for sheer desperation and denial..

Legacy ? A statesman ? Gawd, Fukushima is glowing and he releases a book on the Toronto Maple Leafs .. then gets back to the business of defending Israeli apartheid.. Pray tell us why Steve ?

The so-called 'promotions' in proximity to 'prorogation for the nation' speak to an aging, bewhigged mailroom clerk clinging perversely to pretension, power and place that was never earned or deserved.

This is a shallow deceitful petro pimp shrieking at his arsenal of government lawyers 'to do something' .. delay, deny, litigate, obfuscate, obstruct.. or as his rabid cabin boy Ray Novak once said to the RCMP 'keep them back!'.

Seriously.. Jenni Byrne ? Alykhan Velshi ? This is progressive ? This is a sub prime minister faking it..

Who's next ? Will the other complicit walking dead political zombies like Tom Flanagan, Dean Del Mastro, Helen Guergis, Stockwell Day, Ken Boessenkool or Preston Manning stalk the halls and blockade & defend the washroom Harper has retreated to ? Where's Fantino or Clemente when you need them ? Kenney .. home with his mommy ? Mackay searching for truth n justice n punishment on Google ?

Meanwhile the only loud noise out of Parliament and the Harper Government after the arctic extravaganza and Steve, Laureen & Joe Oliver weenie roast with the startled Inuit & a Chinese reporter.. is John Baird loudly braying his or somebody else's shallow foreign Syria analysis and military predictions or addictions or wish list.. (this the same show me the rapture Baird what stalked outta the UN and Kyota as well.. and defended prorogation uber alles too!)

The poor n pudgy twit Harper is gassed.. the tank is empty.. there never was any PMO talent pool .. the Harper legacy is as immediate & rancid as a dead caribou, or a million infected farmed salmon, a bitumen spill or Ezra Levant.. dumped, rotting, leaking or spewing into your backyard.

The RCMP are caught in their own vice.. and their best musical ride now is to blow Stevie and the backroom blowflies out of the water along with his short pants PMO electrofraud club, & all the Kon party wankers..

& thus the Mounties by gettin their man
and the remoras clinging to him ..
become Canajun heroes .. eh ?


Owen Gray said...

One hopes the RCMP will be Canajun heroes, salamander. The opposition and the press do not seem interested in driving Harper from office.