The Globe lays down the smack

Following-up my post last night on Janke’s laughable attempt to divert attention from his party’s shady election ad scandal, the Globe reports this morning that the Conservative caucus tried, and failed, to make hay with the same phony allegations against Stephane Dion in a committee haring yesterday:

The Conservatives also launched damage-control tactics by "revealing" complicated transactions employed by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion in the 2004 election that, upon examination, turned out to be typical transfers to pay for election-campaign lawn signs and reimburse debt.

I love how the Globe put quotes around the word revealing. It’s like the print equivalent of air quotes. And who says it’s hard to convey sarcasm in print? It’s dripping off that paragraph. As the Globe reports, even a cursory examination of the Conservative “allegations” easily proved them to be without merit:

In fact, Elections Canada filings show that the transfer was one of two that the party made in the same month to pay back $44,719.17 it owed Mr. Dion's riding association - a debt reported publicly six months earlier.

So, that Conservative-initiated diversionary sideshow dealt with, what were the Conservatives really up to yesterday?

The Conservatives successfully staved off attempts yesterday to launch a Commons probe into allegations that the party circumvented national election spending limits in last year's election by funnelling $1.2-million through local candidates.

Tory MPs used procedural tactics to delay a vote on opening a probe - after engineering similar delays in three hearings this week. That means that the probe cannot be launched before Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogues Parliament this weekend, ending the current session of the Commons and delaying the return of MPs until a new session is opened Oct. 16.

Yes, they turned to their trusty old how to stonewall committee meetings handbook to stop Parliament from investigating their shady doings. Wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude they have something to hide, wouldn’t it?

Stonewalling investigations. Another example of accountability, Conservative style?

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