Striving Against Opposition

The Gomery Commission

Larry Zolf seems to have joined the cheerleaders of the ancien regime in saying how biased the Gomery commission is and how Chretien is going to wriggle out of it all because of that.

Chretien may elude responsibility, most likely because he really did leave the task to his various minions and it would seem fairly close minions at that but minions none the less. Furthermore, there usually is a reluctance to try and throw the book at former heads of state. A reluctance only Chretien himself seemed adverse too when he baselessly persecuted Brian Mulroney once Mulroney had left office.

Warren Kinsella (you'll have to scroll to find it, he doesn't bother with perma links) aside from ridiculing Judge Gomery in a way which is generally unbecoming of a lawyer, complains about the cost of the commission. This of course temps me to inquire, how much money was spent maliciously prosecuting Mulroney? Apparantly 12 million is an appropriate figure to chase unsubstantiated rumours fed to the police by a reporter..but 20 million is inappropriate to investigate money which WITHOUT A DOUBT was stolen.

As for Gomery being biased what are his alleged "offenses".

1) He appointed a Tory as chief counsil to the commission.

Somehow the prosecution as it were in this case is a known Conservative, so obviously he's biased. As far as I can tell, this was done to "remove" accusations of bias. If a known Liberal was appointed there would be accusations that someone was being sent in to do a half hearted investigation and questioning and the whole endeavour was a whitewash. Considering that Gomery likely wasn't pointed to the bench for his own "conservative" political views it seems fair enough to me. And its been pointed out elsewhere (Norman Spector who annoyingly doesn't use permalinks eithers so its debatable whether I'm referencing to something still there) that Chretien's own lawyer has served in a similair capacity while dealing with an inquiry into one of the scandals of the Mulroney years. He didn't feel in the least bit conflicted by his partisan affiliation at the time.

2) Gomery has said "millions of dollars were stolen, missappropriate or otherwise mispent" or something to that effect. That's biased? We didn't call an inquiry simply because there was a miscalculation in the math. Alot of money got funneled to ad agencies for their doing absolutely nothing. That's the reason for the inquiry, not a reflection of bias.

Gomery said making golf balls with the initials JC on them was "small town cheap". No kidding, that is terribly tacky and egocentric regardless of the size of the town its done in. Furthermore, doing so on the taxpayer's dime? That isn't cosher.

As for Guite being a "lovable scamp", apparantly Gomery hates the sin but loves the sinner. Who cares as long as he does his job properly?

All of these accusations of bias are baseless and nothing more than political maneuvery to try and cast doubt on the process. Gomery shouldn't even have appologized, as it was completely unnecessary.

posted by Chris @ 2/07/2005 10:57:00 p.m.