Harpergate: How the Tories mishandled Shapiro

Harpergate.

Some one had to say it. Pretty funny if you ask me.

But that's not the point here.

Oh, what a mess this Shapiro thing is. And it soooo did not need to be that way.

Mistake #1. Wrong issue, wrong approach.

The issue here is jurisdiction, not politics. That should have been the way out.

But oh no, we had to smack poor little Shapiro around, creating a little guy to take on Goliath. Watch out for your shins there, Stephen...

Mistake #2. Ad hominem when you should have gone ad ideam.

Threatening to fire Bernie right out of the gate was pretty wild.

I've never seen that before.

And you nearly had something there with the Liberal appointee thing, until it came out that you'd been talking to Broadbent.

Kind of hard to argue that you don't want some political appointee in there when you were trying to get the former leader of the NDP into the game... whooops...

Mistake #3. Using the Enola Gay to fire a shot across the bow.

Warren Kinsella has often said that a good attack is hard-hitting and accurate. Um, we did well on the first count, but the accuracy thing is a bit of a problem isn't it?

We can't actually fire fire Bernie. Whoops.

Mistake #4. Being loath to do what you are legally compelled to do.

We are actually obliged to cooperate with Bernie

Check out section 72.1 of the Ethics Commissioner Act. Dunno if the Justice lawyers have mentionned this, but Bernie has these things called "sub poena" powers.

The latin is unclear here, but you might want to ask a lawyer, I think it mean you don't have a choice to testify.

And you didn't object to the Grewal inquiry, did you? I mean, it just didn't fit your calendar. It's unfortunate that you only lately came to such an ethical dilemma about Bernie.

If only you'd realized this during the Grewal inquiry, you'd be in a very consistent position right now, too bad you're not.

Mistake #5. Not reading the Tory Platform.

Yeah, this is a sticky one.

You might want to read this bit, it's the one about "Giving more power and teeth to independent watchdogs such as the Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner."

Mistake #6. Impatience.

You know, just about anyone could have figured out that Bernie would likely come out of this thing and say it was political schmoozle, that it was distasteful, but not really something for him to stick his nose into.

And if he hadn't, you could have done all of what you're doing now without anyone questioning you.

You would have been able to say you'd cooperated, provided the facts, and that Bernie was clearly off his rocker.

Yeah, this is a schmozzle.