COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE NATIONAL POST
And in a very real sense, Mr. Duffy's lawyer is right.
All writers on this affair seem to forget Mr. Duffy had been
on what can only be termed an extended Stephen Harper Conservative campaign
tour.
That was literally his assignment from the PMO.
It was Harper & Co's decision - why, I can't imagine -
not to directly pay Duffy's costs and conveniences for traveling around and
speaking and glad-handing.
It was Harper & Co telling Duffy to bill the costs
through Senate expenses.
That was completely wrong by any standard of business and
government ethics.
Duffy gets no praise for his behavior, but he was serving
the PMO directly and following what he had been told to do, full stop.
Then the PMO went into a panic because of an audit - simply
put, their role in corrupt Senate practices would be documented.
So they also sought to go-around a proper audit.
And there was their loyal servant, Mr Duffy, perfectly
reasonably saying he needed to be compensated for what he did for them and the
party.
And they saw that he was, through a still more corrupt
practice.
It is a shameful story from beginning to end.
A story of corrupt practices and true incompetence at the
top.
And in the end it is a story of cowardice: Harper and Wright
behaved, and behave to this day, as cowards trying avoid all responsibility for
what they did and to pin it all on Mike Duffy.
It is the sheer cowardice perhaps that is most repellent.
