Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Mutual Understanding

Poor misunderstood, beleaguered, yet noble Brian Mulroney. He is innocent of any wrongdoing. We have it on the authority of another wronged innocent. Conrad Black, imprisoned felon - a court of U.S. law having found him guilty as charged on several counts of misappropriation of funds - in the greatness of his heart writes to challenge the near universal condemnation of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a disgrace to public office.

Two men with a finely honed business acumen, both of whom aspired to powerful positions. For Mr. Mulroney wealth and privilege were temporarily set aside for power and privilege. A successful and well-regarded businessman, he undertook to bring his capabilities and leadership qualities to the public forum of politics. Where he promised the electorate that under his party and his leadership the corrupt antics of the former government and party would be a thing of the past.

But he proved his own adage that "there's no whore like an old whore". Canadians gagged on his oleaginous, blarney-bloated personality and unabashed self-entitlements, yet somehow held their collective noses and voted him into two consecutive majority governments. But try to find someone who would admit they voted for him, another matter entirely. He was so despised that most people weren't at all surprised to find he was suspected of under-the-table negotiations.

The current Oliphant enquiry to try to find the definitive answers respecting his relationship with an equally-smarmy and underhanded arms dealer and the hundreds-of-thousands he received in cash payments has merely reinforced most Canadians' low opinion of the man. As he unabashedly reveals the extent of his crass and self-availing sense of entitlement, complete with the belief that evasion of the truth is a matter of personal survival.

The former Lord Black of Cross Harbour who parlayed his newspaper kingdom into a seat in the House of Lords, determined to take his rightful place in high society was simply another self-entitled delusionist whose grandiose ideas of self included the kind of genteel extortion that he felt entitled to. His aggravated sense of betrayal by the court of public opinion and a U.S. court of law insists that he is innocent of all wrong-doing, echoing Mr. Mulroney's plaints.

Should it be surprising that Mr. Black now writes a column in impassioned defence of the innocence of a good man whose sterling reputation has been unfairly sullied? While avowing that "I am not an expert on this case", he yet insists that Mr. Mulroney is being persecuted. Truth is, he should be prosecuted, but he has somehow, foxily, managed to shield himself from hard, revelatory evidence that would indict him.

We can now expect a triumphant Brian Mulroney, once the Commission is wrapped up, confoundingly still uncertain about events and precedents and the depth of complicity, to write an exonerating defence of Conrad Black to be presented to the U.S. Supreme Court for their consideration in reviewing his sad and sorry case.

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