So we learn today that Harper has dropped his defamation suit against the Liberal party. Is that good news? I suppose there are elements that could be celebrated, but I wonder how Tom Zytaruk feels? What do you suppose the chances are that he'll receive the apology that he deserves?Remember this?
Well, I sincerely doubt that Zytaruk will be hearing from James Moore or Stephen Harper any time soon. Sadly, Canadians won't get the truth they deserve either.
I wonder if one of the players in all of this, Tom Flanagan, will have any words of wisdom in one of his now regular articles in the Globe?
h/t- to BC'er
More - here, here, here, here and here
7 comments:
I wonder if Zytaruk has any legal recourse?
He has the recourse of the legal system. I can't handicap his odds, but I think he could make an interesting argument for libel against the Conservatives.
The barrier, as it was to the Liberals if we wanted to continue to fight the Cons on this, is money. We don't have deep pockets. Neither does Zytaruk. The Cons, however, could bleed either of us dry, making the legal bills add up.
I would think so, but I suspect he'll let it go. He just strikes me as that kind of man, but when you consider the amount of libel thrown about, he'd have a heck of a case.
So many people to go after though. The obvious suspects and then of course you have all those Blogging Tories who were soooo convinced that Harper was going to nail the Lib's.
Gee, has Harper held up his end on anything for those guys? Can't wait for the rationalization on this one.
I hardly consider this a victory for the Liberals - the Cons suppressed talk of bribing Cadman during the last Federal election and now have no use for the suit...
Who said it was a victory?
It just further shows how craven Harper really is, or rather reaffirms it.
Well, there's one element to be considered - Harper has never truly cleared his name and the doubts will be there forever.
So, who won? Face it, if he could clear his name he would have and obviously didn't have a good enough case.
So, Harper will ALWAYS be suspect.
So, who won? Face it, if he could clear his name he would have and obviously didn't have a good enough case.
So, Harper will ALWAYS be suspect.
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I suppose that's the best 'spin' you can hope to put on this. The fact remains that Stephen Harper would clearly have won this lawsuit if the Liberals couldn't prove that he was aware of an illegal bribe being offered, and they obviously couldn't do so.
He let them off the hook for a couple of reasons (with their blessing, since they agreed not to talk about the terms...what does that tell you about the strength of their case?), one of which is that Stephane Dion is no longer the Liberal leader and he was the one refusing to remove the offending comments from the Liberal website. The other is optics: Harper now looks conciliatory (or magnanimous, if you like;) rather than ruthless. Why continue to beat the Liberals when they are down?
So,no...no 'victory' can be claimed by the Liberal Party here, sorry. I know some of you would like to be able to say that you won, or that you embarrassed Harper in some way, but that's just not the case.
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