Fighting The 'Both Sides Did It' Falsehood

StoppingThisStuffReallyDoesMatter
BeforeItBecomesAWedgeIssueOnASilverPlatterVille


I know I've fussed a lot about how the BC Liberal's Multiethnic Voter Information Manipulation Strategy and the Dippers' pooling of constituency funds are NOT the same.

And not just because a fine fellow named Bill Bennett, who has demonstrated time and time again that he will say anything that pops into his head and/or pops out of his fingers, has conflated the two.

But rather because many in the pro-media are willing to do so also, either because they are lazy, or....

...Worse.

So, in the credit-where-credit-is-due department, Craig McInness' piece in the VSun today is worth mentioning because in it he looks at both matters with eyes wide open and concludes that the 'false equivalency' peddling is bogus.

Here is Mr. McInnes' kicker (but I highly recommend you go read the entire thing):

...So were the two breaches the same? Hardly.

To equate the two is to say there is no difference between the work MLAs do for constituents and the work political parties do to secure votes. Constituency work is political in the sense that everything a government does is political.

If people like what you are doing, they are more likely to vote for you, whether as a government or an individual MLA.

What the Liberals were doing was trying to use government resources, not just caucus funds, for the benefit of the political party. They were looking for “quick wins.” That was wrong and elements of it may even have been illegal.

What the NDP did was also wrong under the rules of the legislature, but the scheme met the loose standards of the time when it was set up, standards under which the Liberals had also been happy to operate until challenged by the auditor general. When it was finally flagged as inappropriate, not by the Liberals but by (Attorney General John) Doyle (note: should be 'Auditor' General), it was shut down...


Worth bookmarking, I reckon, so that you can send  it to your friends, family and influential uncles when this issue is later wurlitzered as deflector spike-spin (over ominous music and long, slow drawn out voice modulations making Mr. Yiu's name sound as sinister as inhumanly possible) when the campaign heats up in a few weeks.

OK?


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And, for the record, despite the fact that he has now buried his 'turdstorm' tweet from last week, Mr. Bennett was still at on the weekend...And, when he was called on his codswallop, his ultimate defense was nothing short of lameoisity in the extreme...


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