The Gomery report is out and there really isn’t any news that will cause the Martin Government to collapse. In fact, Martin was specifically exonerated in the language of the report. There’s several important lessons to be learned from what, in the words of one of Small Dead Animal’s commenter, is the Canadian equivalent of the Warren Commission Report.
From south of the border it looks like the only people that are trouble are those who were already “outed” by the leaks earlier in the year. Granted, the Gomery Report is not a criminal investigation, and finding of blame isn’t the same thing as saying someone is a crook…but I find it odd that the people that Gomery put the hammer on were those who were already publicly shown to be below reproach.
From the leaks earlier Pelletier, Guité, Gagliano, Tremblay, and the LPCQ were all suspect. Quail gets blamed for not ferreting out the rats, Martin gets a clear pass, and Teflon Jean is shown as a easily fooled leader.
But even the LPCQ gets a pass because the entire kickback scheme is laid at the feet of Brault, Corriveau and Morselli…again all people that were mentioned in the leaks and thus in the press. Otherwise it is simply an institutional failure. Not one other person in the LPCQ knew what was going on?
I can’t help but think of where Nixon would be if he had appointed one of the Committee to Re-Elect the President lawyers to investigate the Watergate break-in. Perhaps the same spot Martin is in with the Gomery Report.
I think this is why such investigations either need to be made with a truly independent authority or they need to be transparent.
The other lesson of the Gomery Report, and of the Conservative expectations of it, is that you can‘t win hoping that the other person is going to fail. The Conservative Party cannot win if all it is seen to be, if what the supporters of the party push as The Answer, is “We‘re not the Liberal Party Crooks“. An interesting situation when one realizes that the program which allowed the largest loss of Canadian government funds through corruption was to build a National Identity that is more than “We‘re not Americans“.
The same, of course, is a lesson that the American Democrat Party should learn, but won’t. You can’t win if all your hopes are based on the other person failing. Fitzmas didn’t deliver Rove’s frog march from the White House, nor Cheney’s resignation, nor any of the other scenarios that staunch Democrat partisans were sure was going to collapse the Bush White House. While your opponents failure might give you a victory, betting on it to do so isn’t even Vegas odds, particularly so in politics.
The new news cycle story will not be the failure of Bush, nor in Canada the corruption of Martin, but rather the gains that those leaders will be making in climbing out of the respective holes investigations have dug for them. The challenges that they will face. The side that has nothing new to say, no message to deliver, is the one that is left behind In the News Cycle and thus in the voter’s collective consciousness.