False equivalence in the Robocall scandal – rebuttal

The Citizen’s Glen McGregor sends three points of rebuttal to my post this morning about his story (co-written with Stephen Maher) on rule-breaking election-eve Liberal robocalls in the Guelph riding that has been the eye of the storm over Conservative vote suppression efforts in May’s federal election:

  1. The Valeriote calls did give the Conservatives a new line of defence and did further muddy the water, as evidenced in any Hansard from this week. We didn’t pass on judgment on whether the defence was valid.
  2. We never equated the Valeriote calls with the faux Elections Canada calls. Both were parts of the narrative of key events leading up to election day that we catalogued in the story. Readers can draw their own conclusions about equivalence or lack of.
  3. Ottawa Citizen Managing Editor Andrew Potter has been entirely supportive of our continued reporting on this story and has not once tried to influence it in the way you suggest. Your speculation that details about the mechanics of the scandal were “perhaps” relegated to a lower position in the story to reflect his “predilections” is misinformed. Potter didn’t even handle this copy, which was filed on a Sunday (he was off duty). The editor who did made no structural changes to the story.
At some point I may weigh in with some thoughts of my own on Glen’s first two points, but in the interests of getting his response on line as quickly as possible — at the moment I am pulled over by the side of the TransCanada at Mt. Thom, and will spend much of the day in the car — I will give Glen the floor, with thanks for his contribution to the discussion.
On the third point, I will just say that I have no reason whatever to doubt Glen on this, and I’m happy to hear it.