Wednesday, June 08, 2005

In defence of Harper's defence of Grewal

Whatever you think of Grewal, Stephen Harper is doing the right thing by not expelling him from the party and simply allowing him to take 'stress leave'.

I find the 'stress leave' thing a little silly, but if Harper were to abandon Grewal completely, he would be abandoning any revelations the tapes hold.

When Paul Martin and Tony Valeri stand in the House and shamelessly defend Dosanjh and Murphy -- and ignore questions about the Prime Minister's own statements in the House, I find it odd that conservatives feel the only way to purge ourselves of the taint is to climb on the Liberal bandwagon and distance ourselves from Grewal.

The reason the Liberals weather storms is because they gather under an umbrella and push on. Conservatives scatter and scurry for cover.

This is not in defence of Grewal -- it is in defence of Harper. The Speaker continues to allow statements in the House by the Liberals about 'altered tapes'. If Harper were to have expelled Grewal, this would only add fuel to those accusations.

The tapes may be a PR dud according to the polls, but if the Conservative Party treats Grewal more harshly than the Prime Minister does his Health Minister and Chief of Staff, it would be like Harper accepting blame.

canadianna

1 comment:

Paul said...

And let's not forget that the basic wrongs brought out by the tapes still remain completely intact. The PM lied when he initially stated that nobody had spoken to Grewal. The Ethics Commissioner is completely compromised by what is on the tapes. And, the libs did use mob-speak to suggest payoffs for crossing the floor. All of these premises are still a solid as bedrock. But, they'll left the media front pages. If I fault Harper, it's for reacting to the media spin and not pounding away constantly at what the tapes reveal. Even if Grewal was the one who contacted the Libs, it still does not change the fact that the libs said and did what they did.