What the pundits have missed, partly because Team Trudeau's initial ham-handed responses obscured it, is a defense that remains open to the PMO....
Ten days ago, we speculated on the embarrassment Globe and Mail journalists must feel over columnist Christie Blatchford's obsequiousness to the Harper government, as displayed in her columns attacking diplomat Richard Colvin. Paul Wells of Maclean's has an interesting and detailed follow-up in his Inkless Wells blog. Moneyquote: In 20 years in journalism I have never seen anything resembling the systematic and sustained repudiation to which Christie Blatchford, the Globe and Mail’s marquee columnist, is being subjected by her own newspaper. There is room in any good paper for disagreements among colleagues, and frankly there should, for a long time now,...
Richard Colvin's testimony will test the mettle of Canada's national reporters. Will they treat this as an issue that goes to the nation's soul, or as just another he-said, she-said episode in the partisan gamesmanship of Parliament Hill? So far, Paul Wells of Maclean's is passing the test with flying colors. Within hours, Wells refuted one element of the "bucket defence" Conservative MPs put up against Colvin's testimony. Conservative MPs are arguing that these prisoners were, after all, trained to tell tall tales about horrible treatment to attract sympathy. This is a standard argument made by torture apologists. It is probably true...