Many bloggers (including myself) have noted that the “In and Out” scandal once and for all ends any chance of the Conservatives running on openness and accountability in the next election. However, I also think now that the scandal and the Conservative response will also mean that it will be very difficult for them to be running as the “law & order” party either. Kady (ITQ) has noted that Conservatives seem to have a habit of launching a "justice week" when they seem to be in trouble. Well I say that card is gone now for several reasons. First is the obvious fact that Conservatives being raided by the RCMP in them midst of their “justice week” doesn’t make for a nice association or make them seem like they are the party you can trust with fighting crime. Second, as Warren has mentioned you can’t be a crime-fighting party when you are smearing the national police force just for investigating you. I’m frankly surprised that no one in the national force (or at least a former member of the force) has expressed outrage with Conservatives smearing the RCMP for doing their job in carrying out a search warrant. I can only imagine what Conservative smears of the RCMP would come out if the RCMP actually formally launch their own criminal investigation of this scandal or the Cadman affair. However, I think the most important reason why Conservatives have no credibly on crime issues any more is that their actions this week have laid clear that the Conservative view of the law is “if we suspect you of crime we’ll lock you up and throw away the key, but if we are the ones suspected of crime, then ‘so what?’ no big deal nothing to see here, it’s all a PR stunt or an Illuminati conspiracy.”
Conservatives need to learn the law is the law (and that includes elections laws), if it’s broken or suspected of being broken it’s a very serious matter and yet Conservatives shown themselves to be complete and utter hypocrites on this matter. By trivializing what they are being investigated for and smearing those that are investigated them they are trying to undermine confidence in the investigators but in the end they are only undermining Canadians confidence in the Conservative Government itself. Liberals have even given Stephen Harper a chance to try and regain his credibility on the crime issue with some very modest proposals to get to the bottom of the In and Out Scandal, yet there has been a deafening silence in response. The latest Conservative justice week has laid bare that the Conservative have no claim any more to being the party of “law and order”
But in order for Conservatives to not manage to try and resurrect crime as one of their issues it’s very important that the Liberals do everything they can to keep the media’s focus on the “In and Out” scandal and how the Conservatives have dealt with it because it gets to the very heart of why the Conservatives are not a party you can trust on crime or really on anything for that matter. I’d say Liberal bloggers across the board did a pretty good job of covering the bases of this scandal this week. Jeff mentions how it sure does seem like the Conservative Party has nothing to hide. Jason discusses how star Conservative worker Ryan Sparrow quickly losing all credibility, how the RCMP have many avenues to investigate here, and what $1.2 million in extra spending could have bought for the Conservatives in the last election and the latest Conservative strategy is simply to act like whining children. Steve notes how curious it is that the in and out transfers seemed to operate almost entirely in losing ridings (at least outside of Quebec), how Peter Van Loan is once again being extremely deceptive as the Conservatives claim Democracy Watch supports their position on “In and Out” when actually the opposite is true, how Pierre Poilievre is once again full of it in his claims regarding this scandal, and how even former Conservative candidates don't believe the Conservative line (we can now add more to the list too). Scott discussed how Pierre Poilievre is the best spokesman ever (I agree promote him! Put him in all of the Conservative commercials and more interviews like this!) and how Conservatives have been engaging in a troubling pattern of undermining Canadian Government institutions. Finally, Dan gets to the heart of all the sinister forces perpetrating this massive conspiracy against the Conservative Party (though I note the Illuminati is missing from the picture when clearly they are involved as well).
We’ll need to keep this up next week and beyond so Canadians don’t ever forget about this. However, while “In and Out” is a major scandal that Liberals should be talking from here till Election Day, there are many other issues that we have to make sure don’t fall off the radar either. So let’s talk this scandal, but not forget there are so many other Conservative scandals to go on as well (like the latest investigation of Flaherty that I notice many bloggers mentioned) and many positive messages and ideas coming from the Liberals that we can be highlighting too. Either way, while the Conservatives lose some of their main talking points we can continue to highlight ours.
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