We're Off To See The Wizard....

....The Wonderful Wizard of Flaws

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Hmmmmm......

Why would the Canadian Press suddenly throw something like this into the whirlitzer smack-dab in the middle of one of the slowest news weekend's of the entire year:

VICTORIA (CP/Sunday May20/07) - On the day the B.C. government tabled its bill to raise the pay of provincial politicians by close to 30 per cent to $98,000 a year, Premier Gordon Campbell walked into the legislature looking like a million bucks.

A sharp, dark-coloured pin-striped suit, his greying hair appearing to shine almost pure white, Campbell exuded confidence, and looked like he'd been at an exclusive spa.

You'd never know to look at him that controversy and scandal allegations - the stuff that has slayed many a B.C. premier - are beginning to swirl like a dust devil around the six-year-old Liberal government.

He calmly answered a growing chorus of dirty tricks and political conflict-of-interest allegations the Opposition New Democrats hurled his way in question period and essentially shut them down.

That's why Campbell is the wizard, says veteran New Democrat Corky Evans, who says he's been watching the premier work on a bulletproof image while his own relatively inexperienced New Democrats struggle to find their range.

It seems the Liberals under Campbell have largely been able to snuff out what appears as the first whiffs of scandal raised by the New Democrats, says Evans. But he's seen a previously indifferent Liberal backbench taking notice of the Opposition amid the yelling and table thumping that dominates legislature debates.

The New Democrats have raised issues of conflict involving a former top Campbell deputy. Accusations of dirty tricks at pre-trial arguments at the trial of two former Liberal aides has fuelled shooting matches in question period. And the deaths of farmworkers in a highway accident has the Opposition demanding safer and better treatment of workers.

It's all part of an ongoing strategy to pull back the curtain and reveal that the wizard is a mere mortal.

"I give (Campbell) credit," says Evans, the Opposition's agriculture critic and three-term veteran of at least four NDP premiers.

"Shoot, man, one day he's drunk and behind bars and the next day he's on TV making it all better," he said about Campbell. "That is an amazing skill."

"One day, he's seen as taking away seniors' bus passes, closing down their old age home and carrying them out of their building on (expletive) TV and the next day he's all for seniors. He's got a great skill."


I mean really - why would the CP do it?

Unless, of course, the real wizards......

People, like, say, oh I dunno, Andy Orr, are no longer around to protect the faux Wizard in Pinstripe Clothing's back.

Regardless, just goes to show that, until the Opposition is willing to raise, or even re-raise, an issue (see: Drunktank/Hawaii), the press will say nothing.

Which is why a fall session of the Ledge, when the BCRailGate Trial should be riding the rails, full steam ahead (assuming it is not de-railed before it even leaves the station), will be critical if the opposition truly does decide the time has come to get up front and start driving the engines for real.

OK?

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