I don’t do politics. It’s been rule #1 since I started this blog. Mainly because it wasn’t a voice I was interested in using, but also because the last two to three years of reading U.S. political blogs had left me with a bitter taste in my mouth – a concern I expressed here a long time ago.
But I have to make an exception today, so please pardon the brief and not-to-be-repeated-for-a-long-time-unless-I-do descent into political commentary.
The sponsorship scandal being investigated by the Gomery Commission is the most sordid and tawdry episode in Canadian politics in, well, at least recent memory (will someone please invent a -gate name for this, stat?). Each week, new depths are plumbed, new shame explored. All of it occurring on our last Prime Minister’s watch. Still some doubt (though it seems, less and less with each passing day), of his knowledge and involvement and at least tacit approval of many of the activities that occurred. But stunningly few questions to him about what he did know. No media trailing him around, parked outside his door. No daily wondering and speculation in the media about his involvement. Mostly, just silence. Why? Are we just too darned embarrassed to discuss it? Does it all seem so obvious now, that we’re just collectively too ashamed and embarrassed by the whole sordid mess to even talk about it and him, our former Prime Minister for crying out loud, in the same breath?
Well, my sense is that after today, all of that is about to change. I thought at the beginning that once any of these actors found themselves under the glare of the hot lights, fingers would point, accusations would fly, the rats would leave the ship and self-serving leaks to the media would quickly give us the full reveal. I underestimated the extraordinary loyalty that the different camps have to themselves and to their respective leaders – their hatred for each other has truly unified them (that alone should have told us that neither of them was fit to govern us, frankly – we deserve higher motives). But now, with Gomery closing in and the ugliness starting to spread, it looks like this may be changing (really, given everything that Gomery has now accomplished, doesn’t himself’s tawdry and menacing little episode of theatre with the golf balls seem even more declasse?). Fingers are pointing at Paul Martin, the current Prime Minister, with increasing frequency, in what it seems to me to be a calculated scorched earth defense by Chretien loyalists. If this is true, political physics alone dictates an equal and opposite reaction. Country and party both will be sacrificed at the altar – burn everything to protect the leader, as it were. What do the political ideals / illusions (who can tell the difference anymore, really?) of an entire generation of young Canadians matter? Or our reputation as a stable, safe, responsibly managed democracy? Save the leader, then save yourself – burn it down.
It really is a sickening mess.