Pushing CCRAP! (Volume IV)

LeakAndSmear
HarperVille

Double, Not-So Secret Probation Update, evening of Feb 23, 2007
I have contacted Kim Bolan directly and she has provided additional information about how she came to learn that Mr Bains is Mr. Saini's son-in-law. This info can be found here.

Update afternoon of Feb 23, 2007/Mea Culpa Alert!
Kim Bolan, the author of the original piece in the Vancouver Sun has (apparently) left us a note in the comments which has resulted in a follow-up post that can be found here.

Now there has been a lot of kerfuffle, hot air, and a touch of the brouhaha over the Stephen Harper/Navdeep Bains affair.

In case you missed it, Mr. Harper switched into smear mode during question period yesterday when he tried to suggest that the Liberals love terrorists and hate the police because a story in the Vancouver Sun indicated that Lib MP Bains' father in law is a potential witness in the Air India probe.

Liberal backbenchers were ready for Mr. Harper's CCRAP-laden verbal attack and shouted him down immediately.

Which, in and of itself, was pretty interesting.

But what really interests me is the following - where did the original leak for the VanSun story come from?

We've had a bit of a discussion about this over at Mary's place, and one of the Anon-o-mice had something very, very interesting to say:


I've been running this around in my head ever since yesterday - trying to fit the facts to several possibilities. There are RCMP prints on this story too - CBC was playing clips of a female officer who was also lobbying Harper and the House to keep the sunset provisions of the terrorist bill from blinking out...

There are several possibilities about that Sun story, in my view. It certainly has the look of a planted story - how big would your current (ca 2007) file (if you were a working reporter) on Paul Martin's failed bid for John Turner's dented crown be? That 'story' had to come from someone outside Kim Bolan's regular beat - and it had to be done with purpose and precise timing - or what's the point?

In my view there are two possible sources and one probable conduit for those sources...and I don't think it's a coincidence that the story broke in the Sun. I’m not much of a conspiracy buff….but, there is no way that the political half of this equation wasn’t aware of this little manufactured drama in advance. Add the slightly embarrassing fact that the Prime Minister is, by his own admission, diddling with the process of judicial selection in precisely the same way his predecessors did – and you have a lot of very good reasons to change the subject.


To which I can only add - if, indeed, it was a leak was the story doled out on the condition that it be run 'clean' (ie. that the reporter not use alternative sources or POV's)?


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Accidental Deliberations concludes that this affair indicates that Mr. Harper's true nature is emerging before the CCRAPtacularists can obfuscate their way to their way to their precious majority. Me, I figure that, when you are made entirely of CCRAP, it is inevitable that a little of the brown stuff will leak out now and then, regardless how tightly Sandy B. straps on the Depends every morning. The nattering neighbobs of NaPoism have an entirely different take on the matter, of course, one that is more bizarre than not a few of the most rabid of Blogging Tories.

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