Bev Oda - It isn't the dishonesty - it's the stupidity
Despite Stephen Harper's bluster and misdirection, no one has disputed Bev Oda's right to suspend the funding - or, more accurately, to reject the proposal to continue funding.
If Bev Oda had the competence God gave a particularly stupid goldfish, she would have sent the documents back to the officials unsigned. She would have informed them that she was not going to approve the funding, and that would have been that. Alternatively, she could have instructed them to prepare another version of the document with an "I do / do not approve" option. . Either way, she had the means to reject the funding application without looking like Roy Orbison's stupider sibling.
Instead, Bev Oda inserted the word "not," in ink, into the wording of the recommendation above the signatures of the senior CIDA officials. She tried to create the false impression that the officials had recommended exactly the opposite of what they had recommended.
In other words, Bev Oda lied.
Not only that, she lied incompetently.
But most of all, she lied unnecessarily.
So for me, it isn't the dishonesty that's shocking. I've known politicians to be dishonest before. Heck, in the great scheme of political dishonesty, this isn't even a big one.
No. For me it's the stupidity.
To my mind, the explanation is far more simple. Bev Oda had to insert those 'not's, because she was told to deny this funding after she had already signed the document. Harper's ministers are little more than puppets.
Exactly, LTJ. It's not about stupidity, though any woman who wishes to think for herself won't last long in Harper's cabinet. It's about direct intervention from farther up the food chain. What we need is proof, but I'm sure if the Opposition gets remotely close to any such thing, Oda will tender her resignation and it will be "regretfully" accepted.
I suppose KAIROS should be flattered that it's such an apparent menace, but the upshot of all this is that very courageous and marginalised groups they work with have lost badly needed funding. Ironically, KAIROS is now more free than ever to carry out the very advocacy the government (falsely) attributed to the CIDA contract. Perhaps that's the true stupidity here.... I can only hope the Reformatories lost sight of the bigger issues in their noble quest to stomp all over then smear anyone who dares criticise them.
It is a bit of both.
Is there an object lesson here for Oda?
German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has stepped down after he was found to have copied large parts of his university doctorate.
Mr Guttenberg, considered until recently a possible candidate for chancellor, has already been stripped of his PhD.
He told a news conference that it was "the most painful step of my life".
Interesting. Slightly different events, but some similarities.
And yet we have it on the authority of none other than NDP honcho [url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brian-topp/2011/02/what-layton-told-harp... Topp[/url] that Oda is "a smart, effective and well-spoken woman - the kind we need more of in Parliament".
And yet we have it on the authority of none other than NDP honcho [url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brian-topp/2011/02/what-layton-told-harp... Topp[/url] that Oda is "a smart, effective and well-spoken woman - the kind we need more of in Parliament".
Ha! That's hilarious.
Guess he never heard of LimoGate.
Brian was being polite.
Does that mean you were being impolite, by telling the truth?
Probably.
Didn't know where else to put this: From a Conservative blogger: Of Orange Juice and Limos