The Harper government has mounted a classic bucket defence* against charges it illegally steered opposition voters to faraway, fake polling stations in a deliberate attempt to discourage them from voting. Their defenders say: 1. Nothing serious happened. 2. It happened to us too. 3. There's no proof we did it. 4. In fact, it was the Liberals who did it. 5. The calls didn't work anyway. 6. Voters don't care about it. 7. It'll blow over in a day or two. Some of this commentary is just the predictable party-line pandering from pro-Harper media, but a Globe and Mail story purporting to show...

Tim Bousquet's rules for using anonymous sources: The information gained through granting anonymity is not otherwise available. Or, put another way, granting anonymity is not a shortcut to doing the hard work of gathering solid information and good reporting. The anonymous source must have something to lose, should anonymity not be given: loss of a job, etc. Using an anonymous source must result in some positive public good. “Spinning” someone’s view is not a positive public good. Bousquet adds: When I was a reporter at a daily in the states, I had a publisher who wouldn't allow me to use anonymous sources at all. At...

An end of year column by the Globe's John Ibbitson proclaims Harper's prorogation of Parliament "a travesty...