False Start

The beginning of the winter olympics got me thinking of past games, past events, and in correlation with the inauguration of the Conservative Government, false starts. Lets turn our attention to track events, specifically running. In events like the 100m to and through the the 5000m, a runner is only allowed one false start. Any false start that occurs after the initial costs the runner the race, they are automatically disqualified. Politicians on the other hand rarely ever taste the sour sting of the rule book. One might argue that the people hold them accountable on election day, but we've seen time and time again politicians who have broken the rules get elected back into the house of commons.

I must say it was a bit unexpected, not even a day after Harper became the Prime Minister he started to mess up. The issue at hand is the appointment of David Emerson and, Michael Fortier. Many of you have probably heard a lot about David Emerson recently, and I'm pretty sure none of it has been good. Luckily for Mr. Fortier, he hasn't had the same misfortune. Don't misinterpret that in any sense meaning he was rightfully appointed, people would just rather focus on Emerson because he was a larger shock to the system.

David Emerson, what a character; he ran as a Liberal in this past election, won by a large margin, and crossed the floor even before there was one to cross. If I remember correctly, not even a year ago that Belinda Stronach did the same thing, and was nearly torn apart by verbal flak from the tories. It would be somewhat redundant to ask if anyone sees the hypocrisy in this situation. Nevertheless, it remains so.

I'm hesitant to place this as strike one against the tories, I'll only do so if Harper or Emerson decide to hold a by-election. I predict the same events would occur as they did to the Liberals after they called The Gomery Inquisition. The best thing in this scenario would be to play by the saying, "out of sight, out of mind". No one really remembers that in 2004 the sponsorship scandal was primary issue of attacks against the Liberals. However, at that time there was no Gomery, no question of Liberal corruption, and therefore... in the world of politics nothing to worry about. In the past election however, the attacks worked, and it's because in a sense the Liberal core was rotting from the inside; the people did not want an "organized crime" unit