Tale of the Tape
"The Liberal Party has been caught using a doctored tape to make serious criminal accusations against the Prime Minister of Canada on the eve of an expected election campaign," said Tory MP James Moore.
Woah. Did anyone else just have a weird flashback to the Gurmant Grewal incident which, I might add, happened the exact same time as the stuff being mentioned above. Weird.
Kady O'Malley offers a delightfully cynical run-down of the Tory tape tampering allegations here. It's a little curious that Moore and friends aren't willing to explain in what way or by who (whom? any grammar nazis out there who can clarify?) the tapes were edited. Moore was also surprisingly silent, even by Conservative backbencher standards, when asked if Harper actually said the big "financial considerations" line. Actually no, I don’t find that surprising at all, because if Harper hadn’t spoken those words, his immediate reaction when the tape surfaced would have been “what the hell? I never said that!”.
I imagine this is related to the libel suit against Dion but, even then, I don't really see why the Tories would want to resurrect this beast given that no one has really cared about this ever since the RCMP said they wouldn't press any charges. They’ve pretty much invited a few days of questions on what specifically was altered – and once they make that known, they’ll be de facto admitting that the rest of the tape's content is genuine.
Woah. Did anyone else just have a weird flashback to the Gurmant Grewal incident which, I might add, happened the exact same time as the stuff being mentioned above. Weird.
Kady O'Malley offers a delightfully cynical run-down of the Tory tape tampering allegations here. It's a little curious that Moore and friends aren't willing to explain in what way or by who (whom? any grammar nazis out there who can clarify?) the tapes were edited. Moore was also surprisingly silent, even by Conservative backbencher standards, when asked if Harper actually said the big "financial considerations" line. Actually no, I don’t find that surprising at all, because if Harper hadn’t spoken those words, his immediate reaction when the tape surfaced would have been “what the hell? I never said that!”.
I imagine this is related to the libel suit against Dion but, even then, I don't really see why the Tories would want to resurrect this beast given that no one has really cared about this ever since the RCMP said they wouldn't press any charges. They’ve pretty much invited a few days of questions on what specifically was altered – and once they make that known, they’ll be de facto admitting that the rest of the tape's content is genuine.
Labels: Cadscam, Chuck Cadman, Gurmant Grewal
posted by calgarygrit at
5:58 p.m.
20 Comments:
My thoughts exactly.
By
Red Tory, at 6:11 p.m.
So who's copy was doctored - the publisher sent a copy to each of the political parties.
Hmmmm....time to compare copies???
By
Anonymous, at 6:33 p.m.
Keep drinking the kool-aid. You continue to under-estimate Mr. Harper. The CPC did not do this because they thought it would turn out badly for them.
By
Anonymous, at 6:37 p.m.
I'd like some of the kool-aid you're drinking, anonymous.
By
Anonymous, at 6:45 p.m.
Harper is getting ready to call an election. He figures there will be more plant shutdowns coming through the summer. This is the only scandal that touches Harper directly.
By
Anonymous, at 7:50 p.m.
And how, pre tell, will Harper "call" an election before the summer?
By
calgarygrit, at 8:30 p.m.
"And how, pre tell, will Harper "call" an election before the summer?"
There must be something in the Tory agenda that even the Liberals don't support.
By
Anonymous, at 9:13 p.m.
"The CPC did not do this because they thought it would turn out badly for them."
By god, you're right! And here I was thinking the CPC did this because they knew it would turn out badly for them.
It never even occured to me they would raise the Cadman issue because they THOUGHT it would help them, but that they were wrong.
That Harper is a genius.
By
Gayle, at 9:33 p.m.
"And how, pre tell, will Harper "call" an election before the summer?"
Pray tell I shall - PM can go to the governor general anytime and ask for dissolution. Nobody will care about the reasons for more than a day or so. I can't think of any other reason why they would want to dredge this up again, can you?
By
Anonymous, at 10:56 p.m.
Yah, I rubbed my eyes to double check if this story was real this morning. Makes no sense. No one gave a hoot about this story anymore anyways.
By
Anonymous, at 11:10 p.m.
Actually, the I think the CONS motive is that they think we are going to tumble them tomorrow and they didn't want this to be a campaign ad.
By
James Curran, at 11:10 p.m.
How can the PM justify going to the Governor General to dissolve parliament? It was his government that set the election date to 2009. Therefore the irony is he has put the power of the election in the hands of the opposition (mainly the Liberals). He may goad the opposition into calling an election but that has yet to be determined.
I just think the Tories want to avoid seeing the Cadman affair in the AD wars during the next election. Therefore it is better to take a hit today instead of worrying about that hit tomorrow in the middle of a 6 week election.
By
Anonymous, at 12:39 a.m.
They want a positive ruling before a Fall election?
The message they are getting out to those who don't read too far past the headlines is "THE TAPE IS DOCTORED"
Makes sense.
I read the expert findings over at Taylor's site. They seem competent and convinced that there are edits.
We need to see if other experts will agree.
But yes, it does seem that Harper has opened himself up to the media honing in on what Harper did say, unless the media does little more than repeat "DOCTORED TAPES". If they do the latter, then the CPC will count this part of the media war as a win.
It's the never-ending campaign folks...
By
Mark Richard Francis, at 1:38 a.m.
Say this tape is taken off the table as to proof of Harper's sleaze. Fine, i'd just use Dona Cadman's quotes then because we all know CON Party = Harper. I'd then make sure the media is aware of Harper's lost case where the party coughed up money to past candidates; according to the judgement, Harper fibbed.
Tie that with his twitchy flip-flop on income trusts. And his apparent addiction to needing lawyers to solve his problems. And his overall distrust of all things government. Instead of standing up and working with provinces, he picks fights with them. When one is reeling from economic hardship, he has his minister throw them an anchor.
The guy's a pathological case.
But the theory that he's going to call an election does now make sense. He can use the pretense that the economy is going down the tank, that he needs a majority gov't or at least a new house to give him the mandate to deal with it. That promise of a 4 year term will just join all the other fibs that have piled up.
And James Moore, you've sunk as low as you can go.
By
burlivespipe, at 3:19 a.m.
"It's a little curious that Moore and friends aren't willing to explain in what way or by who...the tapes were edited."
No one explained how or where the Grewal tapes were altered. I'm pretty sure the words "warm comfy fur" spoken by the then-PM's chief of staff were not spliced together.
But no one cared then, and that's the difference...once the media had it confirmed that there was SOME doctoring of the Grewal tape, it didn't matter where or how...one of the most vicious character assassinations of a public figure I've ever seen was underway.
It's a very recent reminder of how the media will spin ANY story to tarnish the Conservatives.
But I will agree with you that I don't understand why the Tories brought this story back into the news.
By
Anonymous, at 9:17 a.m.
If we are talking about the tape, we are not talking about Bernier or "in and out", or the Airbus scandal but Cadscam, for which the Tories are pretty clean.
By
french wedding cat, at 11:33 a.m.
john g, you say you don't understand why Harper put Cadman back in the news after spelling out the reason yourself.
once the media had it confirmed that there was SOME doctoring of the Grewal tape, it didn't matter where or how...one of the most vicious character assassinations of a public figure I've ever seen was underway.
The CPC website is now plastered with Dion-must-explain-the-doctored-tapes. Obviously they are hoping Dion will be smeared by their allegations.
I don't find the tape-doctoring evidence convincing. One expert also wasn't convinced. The other one was contacted later, has worked for the Republicans, and was willing to make some statements, but nothing really addresses the damning core content of the tape. However the goal is to put Dion and the Liberals on the defensive and hope some mud sticks to them.
By
Anonymous, at 1:12 p.m.
“No one explained how or where the Grewal tapes were altered.”
John,
As I recall it, Grewal initially released 9 minutes of the tapes running four hours.
He had not included the part where he asked explicitly for benefits. Nor the part where Martin’s COS (Tim Murphy) said that no one would make promises to Gurwal. The game was up once the tape was heard in its entirety.
Please check the wikipedia article on Grewal Singh.
“In January 2006, a few days after the general election, Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro released a report [1] that was sharply critical of Grewal. Grewal, he found, had sought an inducement either for his personal gain or in order to entrap the Liberals.”
I hope that this helps.
By
JimTan, at 1:25 p.m.
Actually, the I think the CONS motive is that they think we are going to tumble them tomorrow and they didn't want this to be a campaign ad.
Yeah, I'm sure they were terrified of that!
I think they're just getting stupid advice, and are stupid enough to follow it.
This was a dead issue, and they think it's a wonderful idea to bring it back to the front page?
By
Möbius, at 6:55 p.m.
Thank you for sharing excellent informations. Your website is so cool. See this to get complete information about HSSPP Notification.
By
Anonymous, at 5:25 a.m.
Post a Comment
<< Home