WithHaldeman'sCliffNotesVille
I'm telling you.....
Even Frank Luntz on a non-stop, 28 day Ibogaine binge couldn't come up with stuff like this.
What the heck am I talking about?
Well, it's 28 pages of talking points for Gordon Campbell et al. that were presented as evidence by the defense in the Railgate trial, and was then released by the court, yesterday.
In the document, the flack hacks tell Mr. Campbell and his Cabinet colleagues how they should respond to questions, presumably those that were supposed to come from the press and/or JoyMcPhail, about any and all Railgate-related matters way back in the days when the deal was going down in the Spring of 2004 (ie. after the Ledge Raids, but before the charges came down and during that period when CN Rail was apparently getting cold feet because the tax credit default swap conditions had not yet been fully 'fixed' by a person or persons still unknown, kinda/sorta).
Last night Bill Tieleman, who reported on it most fulsomely by far, described the document thusly:
...Attached to a May 9, 2004 email from premier's office Deputy Chief of Staff for Issue Management Jay Schlosar to Tom Syer, former policy coordination and issues management deputy chief of staff, the 28 page document details proposed answers to media questions about the BC Rail deal and much, much more.
The first question: "How is a 990-year lease not a sale?"
The document goes on to discuss how to answer questions about the firing of David Basi and why Bob Virk was only suspended at that time; the role of Martyn Brown in personnel decisions, why the government won't suspend the BC Rail deal when it's "clearly under investigation", and much more.....
Now, I'm telling you....This thing is going to keep on giving and giving and giving as the trial proceeds, because it really does a contain a multitude of potential questions (many of which I, and others, have implored the proMedia to ask over the years) and all manner of fauxian 'answers' that are laughable in the extreme, so much so that they are going to be most deserving of constant belittlement and derision as the reality of the trial unfolds day after day after day.
And if you want it for your own reading enjoyment right now, it's all yours for the low, low price of only 8.2 Mb of free pdf file download, here.
(I'll have a few examples up to get us started on this never-ending story later - once I've stopped laughing and spraying coffee all over the keyboard! ......It actually contains more than just Railgate related matters, including stuff on the Doug Walls affair...We can expect to see a few comments on that aspect of the thing from Sean Holman soon, I reckon...)
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And thanks to Grant G for the tip-off on how to find the document at the august Vancouver Province website where it had been miss-linked in yesterday's Keith Fraser filing.....By the way, in case you didn't know it Grant has been making like a Sunshine Coast Hunter Thompson transplant gone wild over at his own place lately....No mention of ibogaine there yet though......
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4 comments:
Thanks Ross.
And thanks for fixing the link you posted at Mr T's place yesterday.
You, my friend, are on a roll!
And of course - thanks to Grant G too
A major bouquet is tossed your way by BC Mary ...
My god...question period explained. Only thing missing is the added insertion of "The member is WRONG" prior to delivery of the lines.
The disdain and contempt dripping from the "suggested answers" is audible even through reading....
You're welcome GWest....It was actually bizarre to me the way the Province buried it within K. Fraser's lede from yesterday.
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Was Grant G that noticed it Mary.
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Anon--
It is rather an interesting illustration, isn't it....If find the detail in the 'questions' most telling...This would appear to be information management taken to the nth degree, which I guess is to be expected given that this is a government that operates by press release not open discourse.
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