Posted on 05/29/2008 10:28:59 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
For reasons of media and opposition bias that are all too familiar, the words of Ms. Julie Couillard are being accorded Triple A rating for credibility while whatever Prime Minister Harper says is being downgraded to junk. Ms. Couillard (an alleged security expert) says her bed had been electronically bugged, so reporters begin a speculative romp to find the possible perpetrators of the bugging. None plausibly come to light, leaving the media with the task of cornering the Prime Minister on whether, maybe, the government was the perpetrator. "I didn't do it," Mr. Harper was essentially forced to say, if not in so many words.
Against Mr. Harper and his former industry minister, Maxime Bernier -- a man who has shown himself to be too candid, too truthful and too open on any number of occasions-- sits Ms. Couillard in glamour-puss makeup delivering preposterous dialogue only a soap opera writer could create. Her relationship with Mr. Bernier "destroyed my life," she said. "I've been cut off from the world. It's like everyone has turned their back on me."
Ms. Couillard's best line, though, is that she really never was any kind of security threat. This from a woman who, instead of quietly returning allegedly secret government documents to their owner, Mr. Bernier, first calls her lawyer. I'm surprised she didn't call Vladimir Putin offering a deal. But then, instead, she starts calling the media, looking for a $50,000 fee to tell her exclusive story, finally settling on Quebec-based TVA, where she does two half-hour interviews, one in French and one in English. If your life is coming to an end, apparently, you need to do it style-- twice.
She says she's a real estate agent, although the Mont-real agency she registered under says she never worked there, and never sold any real estate. Le Devoir also has Ms. Couillard as an executive of a security devices company called Itek Solutions, linked to biker gangs. Gosh, they wouldn't be bugging her bed, would they?
Mr. Bernier's choice of women obviously isn't up to his economic values. He's known to be a bit too laissez-faire in his personal relationships with the opposite sex. Paring up with Julie "I am not a biker chick" Couillard betrays a lack of taste, if nothing else. But perhaps the media and the opposition parties could begin tracking down the other women he's been seeing over the last couple of years to find whether they too might have had a role in his political fortunes as he moved from industry to foreign affairs.
Women and the ethics vote have brought down politicians in the past. Mr. Bernier, however, should be able to survive his brush with these twin demons. His record as industry minister, as McGill University's Richard Schultz chronicles elsewhere on this page, should be enough to solidify Mr. Bernier's competence, vision and courage in the face of the usual bureaucratic stone walls that block reform in Ottawa.
The mystery is why Mr. Bernier, on his way to continuing a telecom revolution as industry minister, rattling cages and power centres all over Ottawa, was pulled off the job and shipped to outer Afghanistan, a country he possibly couldn't locate on a map prior to running for office. Once in foreign affairs, stripped of any independence, Mr. Bernier appeared in strange international confabs delivering messages and statements that were obviously tightly controlled by the Prime Minister's Office and others in the centralized power system that is federal politics.
The opposition parties are now treating the Couillard security breach as if Mr. Bernier had left behind plans for a NATO invasion of Iran. The opposition, strangely, also wants to know what exactly was in the top secret documents, disclosure of which would force a breach of the secrecy they claim to be so sacred. Leaving the documents with Ms. Couillard was a stupid thing to do, from what we know -- although we wouldn't know anything if Ms. Couillard were not enjoying her televised revenge on Mr. Bernier.
As for Mr. Bernier's "gaffes," not one betrays anything more than an occasional lack of candour or at worst a misunderstanding. On at least one gaffe occasion he appears to have been reciting what he was told to say. When a minister makes a mistake, the bureaucrats who handed him the mistake are nowhere to be seen.
Next time Mr. Bernier is in Cabinet-- and there should be a next time -- he deserves a portfolio that suits his significant talents better than the lap-dog role expected of ministers of foreign affairs.
I don’t always agree with everything TC has to say, but so far, he’s the closest to the truth on this matter (at this point, anyway).
I’ll give you Canucks credit. When you have a sex scandal, at least the woman involved is a major babe (unlike our 20 something chubby interns...)
The many temptations of Quebec .... as too many fallen Cabinet Ministers have discovered over the years ....
Many might even admit, “I'd have fallen for him/her, too.”
Some may even confess, “I HAVE fallen for one that was like him/her.”
The fault would be blatant if the embarrassed made continual mistakes in choosing the wrong lover(s).
What I'm saying is that I don't think Maxime Bernier is Charlie Sheen.
Yes, the public sees right through Julie Couillard (and also those other profiteers like Scott McClellan). If the details were really real, then the witnesses would seek the honor of telling truth without pay.
The best peace offer the befuddled awkward can give is, “I'm sorry it didn't work out.” while the rest of the public can guffaw to the absurd one, “Enjoy your 15 minutes.”
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