Tuesday, May 27, 2008

This government cannot be that incompetent, can it?

After reading about the fate of Mr. Bernier my first reaction was to just shake my head. But then I began to question this affair and other blunders of this government in the last six months and became suspicious that they are up to something.

After all, this government is supposed to be lead by a political strategic genius yet this government has made some fundamental errors in the last half-year.

Take the Bernier Affair (the misplaced documents not his choice of companion). It is Cabinet Minister 101 that you should never take secret department or cabinet documents from their secured location in your office. If, for whatever reason, you have to remove them then you take them from the secure location in your office directly to the secure location that has been installed in your residence. You do not take them to the apartment of your lover (ex-lover?) one evening and you certainly do not leave them sitting on the night stand beside her bed the next morning.

Then look at the Linda Keen, nuclear isotopes fiasco. It is usually not good for a government's fortunes to be seen by the electorate as dropping the ball on nuclear safety. For whatever reason whenever the word "nuclear" is mentioned people tend to perk their ears up to see what it is all about. So when a government is perceived to have placed political and business interests above nuclear safety it is usually not good news for them.

Then look at Mr. Flaherty's assault on the Ontario government just before the last Ontario budget. That is not really a surprise. After all, Mr. Flaherty has a well documented history of incompetent boobery from his days in the Harris/Eves governments. However, it is widely known that no minister in this government can go to the bathroom without first clearing it with the PMO and maybe even the big guy himself. (I am talking about his position and not his girth, which some are saying is actually shrinking.) Again considering the big guy is supposed to be a political strategic genius you would think he would have put a stop to Mr. Flaherty's silliness real quick.

So again, considering Mr. Harper's genius all of these errors cannot really be errors. They must be part of some elaborate and undoubtedly brilliant political strategy. The question is what?

My guess is they want to goad Mr. Dion into defeating this government. However, that raises the question of how do they overcome the negative effects of these gaffes?

The only answer is the Harperites have some really, really, really, really dramatic surprise up their sleeve and they are just itching to spring in on the unsuspecting Liberals. Perhaps they have found the cure for Cancer. Or maybe Stephen Harper single handedly captured Osama bin Laden during his last trip to Afghanistan. (When bin Laden ducked into the Khandahar Airbase Tim Hortons for his daily large double-double.) Combine this with the Conservatives almost religious belief that Mr. Harper will kick Mr. Dion's ass during the election debates because of Mr. Dion's English (of course ignoring his French and its possible effects on those debates) you can see an outline of the plan.

This can be the only explanations for the recent spate of stupidity we have seen from them for the last few months. Then again, maybe they are just incompetent and corrupt but I still have my suspicions.

Incidentally, the questions I want answered in the Bernier Affair is exactly when did Ms. Coulliard contact her lawyer about the lost documents? Was it soon after they were left behind, which most agree was before April 24? If so, why did her lawyer hang on to them for a month? What did he do with them during that month? And the million dollar question: Whose idea was it for him to hang on to them for that long? His? The Hells Angels? Ms. Coulliard's? Stephen Harper's?

After all, if this would have come out just before, during or just after the NATO summit it would have been very bad for the government. Much worse than it is now and it is bad enough as it is.

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