So, suddenly, today, out of nowhere, the Con's claim that the Harper tape about Cadman was 'doctored'.Bizarre? Maybe, but the Harper conservatives don't do anything without a 'plan'. Were internal polls telling them that Harper was not considered trustworthy? If the past polls are any judge, perhaps but I think it's more than that.
Moore's assertion is that part of the tape is missing. The CBC report claims that Harper's words were not changed,
Moore did not say that Harper's words had been changed, but implied the meaning had changed because of the missing eight minutes.
However, the National Post reports this:
"The Cadman tape has been doctored. The questions remain: who doctored the tape? When did they doctor it? And why did they do it?" said Conservative MP James Moore.
The Conservative party said it has filed a court injunction to restrain the Liberal party from using the tape.
"The tape is incomplete, the tape was doctored by inserting a sound clip that was fabricated," Mr. Moore said, while speaking in French at a news conference.
So what was inserted and fabricated? Some reports claim 'white noise'. Does that mean that some of what Harper said was blocked? I still do not see how this discounts what we all heard Harper say.
All of that to say that this feels like a 'look at the shiny object' moment. Considering all that has been piling up for the Con's, something about this just feels wrong.
Kady reports that she got Ryan Sparrow's assurance that there were no chain of custody issues. Well I understand that she has to take him at his word, but I don't. This is the same Ryan Sparrow who was busy holding secret briefings to preferential reporters in an attempt to spin the RCMP/Elections Canada raid? Yea, that guy is always straight with the press!
Call me crazy but it's tough not to think of Grewal here. Not that I think the Con's doctored the tape themselves in this case, because that would be crazy right? After all, the author sent the same tape to many people so it would be really odd if only this one was different.
Hmmm. Looking at this CP report that includes some of what the forensic experts said, the allegation seems pretty flimsy.
Audio experts Alan Gough of Stratford, Ont., and Tom Owen of Colonia, N.J., separately examined copies of the tape and reached similar conclusions.
"The tape has been edited and doctored and does not represent the entire conversation that took place," Owen said in a sworn statement.
"This is not a continuous recording of one conversation," Gough said in his affidavit.
"The interruptions of words, changes of background ambience and changes of frequency response indicate that this may be three separate recordings."
If it's not one continuous recording of one conversation, did Harper meet Zytaruk more than once? Is it not just possible that the tape was stopped 3 times due to excess noise? How often does the ambient noise change on your street over the course of minutes?
This just does not add up.
Update - I tend to agree with Steve. Making the tape inadmissible could speak to the fact that their case did not look good with the tape in play.
Update 2 - The tape. The transcript.
Update 3 - Here's Zytaruk's response. h/t to Kady
7 comments:
When I do an interview with a tape recorder, I turn it on and off several times during a conversation. If, on the other hand, I'm covertly recording someone for evidence, etc., then I may leave it running full length.
OF COURSE the bloody tape has started and stopped a few times. That's just normal interview technique for most people. When you're talking about magnetic audio tapes (even micro-cassettes), you have a finite amount of space - maybe only 1/2hr, so you need to economize.
This is just more smoke and mirrors by the "con"-servatives...
I know it's logical that the tape would be stopped and assume it's smoke and mirrors, but who the hell are these experts?
Moore cites one as being responsible for studying the bin Laden tapes. Oh, never mind.
The funniest part, as if he would release a tape, with the Prime Minister of Canada on it, if it wasn't factual correct. It defies any logic, because you know full well you would be in deep shit, if you altered what Harper said.
Moore was so confident at the beginning of the press conference, once the reporters were done with him, entirely on the defensive and flustered.
Exactly Steve.
You know I've always heard that Moore was a decent guy. I think they may be throwing him under the bus here.
Of course decency doesn't weigh too heavily on Harper's mind.
Zytaruk's response.
While this is a strange comment,
"What's important here is that the media find out if they're talking about my original tape or something the Liberal Party of Canada put on its website. I don't know," said Zytaruk.
As mentioned earlier Ryan Sparrow confirmed that the tape came from the publisher.
All they have to do is compare the Liberal tape to the author's tape.
How do they know if the author had other interviews (he's a journalist) on the one tape - hence on and off.
This just doesn't pass the smell test.
No it doesn't Sandi. I've just written another post on this and I think something is up.
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