I imagine that come January, when the RCMP release more news about arrests and criminal charges stemming from the biggest corruption scandal in Canadian history—the Chretien/Martin/Dion Liberal government’s AdScam sponsorship scandal—those charming and honest communists in Vietnam will finally beat Canada on the corruption index.
The Liberals’ Paul (“we lead the world”) Martin legacy secretariat will have to add the proviso that what he meant was leading the communist world in liberal-left big-government corruption and entitlement, thereby making him more correct, honest, and indeed prescient in his election statements of the past.
Liberalvision CTV’s web site, CTV.ca, reports it thusly, buried deep in their business section rather than on the front page, quoting a re-hashed report from their brothers at the liberals’ Globe and Mail:
ROMA LUCIW , Globe and Mail Update
Canada failed to crack the top 10 list of countries perceived to be the least corrupt, according to the results of a new international survey that suggests the sponsorship scandal has scarred our squeaky-clean image.
The inaugural Gallup Worldwide Corruption Index found that Canada ranked 15th, right behind Uruguay and Vietnam but just ahead of the Netherlands and Belgium.
They further inform us, in their unbiased news story, of this:
Canadians gave themselves high marks on everything from the economy to health to law and order, but a failing grade on the nation’s leadership, which gauges a population’s confidence and satisfaction with social institutions.
“These results are based solely on public opinion data, not on expert evaluations,” said Steve Crabtree, an analyst with Gallup. “It is the subjective perception of that population at that point in time.”
A majority of Canadians surveyed by Gallup said they believed corruption was widespread throughout the national government.
Then, down in the sixth paragraph, they let us in on this trivia:
The survey was conducted during the eight-weeks campaign prior to the January 2006 election, which saw Conservative Stephen Harper defeat ruling Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin amid voter anger with the sponsorship scandal.
…which effectively, totally, completely, in every which way, lets the Harper Conservative government off the hook. This trivial detail matters only if you’re not a liberal, apparently.
Of course liberals reading this will thus quickly go from exaltation to crying foul at this and call the survey crazy.
But then, as if to drive them crazier than they already are, they’ll find that the evil (to liberals) U.S. finished even lower than Canada. And yet if you’re not crazy, you’ll find that the Globe and Mail reporter gratuitously injected this bit of absolutely immaterial, unrelated information into the mix—immaterial politicking inasmuch as it happened in… September 2006—well after the survey was completed and the report filed:
Voter anger over the resignation of Republican Representative Mark Foley after he sent sexually suggestive computer messages to young Congressional pages was in part what helped defeat U.S. President George W. Bush’s Republican party in midterm elections last month.
Thanks for that extra information!
Interesting how the reporter felt it was important to mention that Foley was a “Republican”, as is President Bush’s party, notwithstanding the immateriality of that fact. Yet when they mention the Liberal Party’s AdScam sponsorship scandal, arguably 8,000 to 10,000 times more important to the question of national corruption than the Foley affair which hadn’t yet even happened, they do it without sticking the words “Liberal Party” in front of that. They simply refer to it as “voter anger with the sponsorship scandal”. The report itself describes it as “The highly publicized AdScam scandal…”. Not a “Liberal” scandal but rather “the highly publicized” scandal.
Also unmentioned by the reporter, the “Republican” Foley promptly admitted to his guilt and resigned, in order to help restore faith in the U.S. government.
Also unmentioned, the fact that the U.S.‘s poor showing (#19 in the list) had to do with things that did take place prior to the completion of the survey—which is important because Mr. Crabtree took the trouble to mention that it was “attributed to American perceptions that domestic corruption and scandal are on the rise.” So, let’s mention some things that were “on the rise”! Things like Democratic Presidents who were caught getting blow jobs in the Oval Office by a young female staff member and then lying about it before getting impeached, among other historically tawdry things that “arose”… might have been mentioned rather than the Foley affair, which took place after the fact.
Personally, I would have mentioned Former Clinton administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who pled guilty in 2005 to unlawfully removing classified 9/11-related documents from the National Archives in October 2003 by stuffing them down his pants and getting caught, denying it, then getting into exactly no media heat over it. But as long as they could mention that “Republican” Foley thing!
I guess the fact that “these results are based solely on public opinion data” and the surrounding confusion over objectivity caused the report-writers to mention that (a non political party affiliated) Paul Martin “was explicitly cleared of any involvement” in the AdScam sponsorship scandal. The Liberal Party wasn’t and the Liberal government wasn’t exonerated in the scandal, which, once again, was in any case no worse than that Foley caper (which happened later), apparently.
I guess the public opinion data and “subjective perception of that population” told him to put that in their objective report and to later say that to reporters for objectivity purposes.
Of course this could all be selective, objective reading and then reporting by the liberal media of the objective survey and the comments made about it. But as long as there’s no spin involved in reading the results, we can be sure they’re as trustworthy as those liberals, Bill Clinton and Paul Martin.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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