21 Nov MP Hawn walks it back – awkwardly

Posted at 10:12h in That's life by

Laurie Hawn, the Edmonton Centre MP who (along with Defence Minister Peter MacKay) been leading the character assassination of career diplomat and whistleblower Richard Colvin, backpedaled hard on CBC Radio’s The House this morning. The Conservatives meant “nothing personal” when they savaged Colvin as a patsy for the Taliban.

Host Kathleen Petty didn’t buy it, and pressed Hawn, who retreated into a particularly feeble version of the bucket defence (which I guess we are now calling the kettle defence):

  1. His allegations of torture weren’t credible
  2. As soon as  we heard about the torture, we fixed the problem.
  3. It’s all the Liberals’ fault anyway.

The rope-a-dope it wasn’t.

To judge from the backpedaling, Conservatives now realize how bad their assaults on Colvin looked. Their calculated decision to unleash the attack dogs resurrected moderate Canadian suspicions about their Reform Party roots.

So they get that it’s politically dumb. Pity they don’t realize it’s just plain wrong.

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From now until 9:05 a.m. Pacific time (1:05 p.m. Atantic time) you can catch livestreams of the broadcast here. A podcast will go up later.