Clearly Jean Chretien, Liberal, and Prime Minister of Canada during its downfall from the mid 90’s through 2003, had rehearsed and set up his little performance yesterday.
And at least one reporter, Jane Taber at the Globe and Mail, thinks Chretien’s arrogant little play-act in the final day of his testimony (on the stand at his own Liberal Party’s corruption inquiry in which his own lieutenant has admitted involved laundering taxpayer money) was orchestrated by a Warren Kinsella. Kinsella is one of the Liberals’ favorite pets. He helped Chretien get elected. Woof. Need I say more?
Apparently Kinsella is also a joker. Are we paying him?
Chretien obviously came to the inquiry for his testimony equipped with a briefcase full of props—just like a clown—in fact it kind of reminded me of a performance by Carrot Top, a comedian who makes a career out of pulling inane things like rubber chickens out of a case and being a total ass (on purpose), and people laugh at him, not with him, because he’s so clearly pathetic and sad and dumb. Neither Kinsella (if he were involved) nor Chretien were trying to be asses (or pathetic, sad, or dumb) on purpose, I presume. They did pull it off nonetheless.
When Chretien started exposing his balls to the corruption inquiry lawyers and judge Gomery—you could almost hear the snickers from the adolescent taxpayer-funded Chretien lawyers hiding in the peanut gallery—as if they were in the midst of pulling off another high school prank. I envisaged them standing there—Kinsella and others—some with a finger up their noses and eating what they find, others thumbing through a Big Jugs magazine, waiting for the funnies to start as their deposed leader played his role on the corruption inquiry stage to the guffaws of union cameramen and clerks.
Others thankfully took it seriously. I shook my head as I’m sure many Canadians who take their country seriously did.
But pulling props out of Carrot Top’s case and displaying them as evidence raises the question—shouldn’t those props be entered into the record as exhibits in this corruption inquiry? They were presented as evidence. Evidence that, among other things, presidential golf balls are available on Ebay.
OTTAWA—Jean Chrà ©tien came armed with it. The master of negative politicking, Warren Kinsella, had helped supply it. And Mr. Chrà ©tien’s close cabal of advisers sat in the back of the room all day waiting to see it.
But Mr. Chrà ©tien needed his lawyer to provide the setup.
Finally, in the last round of questioning from his counsel, Mr. Chrà ©tien reached into his brown briefcase, pulled out a golf ball and delivered the line that not only mocked Mr. Justice John Gomery’s characterization of Mr. Chrà ©tien as “small-town cheap” for spending $1,200 on autographed golf balls but provided the knockout punch of the sponsorship inquiry that day.
“I have one here by a very well-known group, Ogilvy Renault,” Mr. Chrà ©tien said, referring to the tony Montreal law firm. “You know, Mr. Roy [lead inquiry counsel Bernard Roy], Mr. [Brian] Mulroney and Mademoiselle Gomery [the judge’s daughter Sally] are all members of that firm; you cannot call them small-town.
“And call them Westmount cheap—it will be an oxymoron.”
[…]
There is more: It seems that the infamous Ogilvy Renault golf ball may have been slipped to Mr. Chrà ©tien by the so-called Prince of Political Darkness and author of a book on negative politics, Warren Kinsella.
Mr. Kinsella would neither confirm nor deny his role in the golf-ball caper. He said Mr. Chrà ©tien “knows a lot of people.”
However, there is a close connection between Mr. Kinsella and the Montreal law firm. His father-in-law, Paul Amos, was a partner at Ogilvy Renault.
So, along the way, Mr. Chrà ©tien may have told a little white lie: Asked by his lawyer whether he received all of the golf balls he held up from the persons he identified, he said he had, with the exception of the Bush ball that was given to him by another person.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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