Adscam Scandel,  Canada

Chrétien Defends Role in Canadian Adscam Scandel

The Globe and Mail has this story on former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien:

PHILADELPHIA — Former prime minister Jean Chrétien defended his handling of the sponsorship scandal last night, as he made his first public appearance since testifying at the Gomery inquiry.

In Philadelphia to accept an award as an “international role model” from a gay-rights group, Mr. Chrétien said he would not comment on the political fallout from the scandal, with the current minority Liberal government teetering on the brink of a new election and the separatist Bloc Québécois poised to sweep his home province.

“For me, I don’t comment on anything political since I quit,” he said on his way into the Equality Forum dinner. “A former prime minister doesn’t . . . I’m a Liberal and if there is an election, I will vote Liberal with pleasure, but I don’t comment on it…”

Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters says that Chrétien has played the Gay card:

The American gay-rights group Equality Forum has to win an award itself for the worst political timing in years in choosing to honor Chrétien. With even his own party’s leadership abandoning his legacy as the chain of corruption creeps ever further towards his office, holding Chrétien up as a role model for gay rights would have its American equivalent in making Richard Nixon the poster boy for environmental activism in government for his creation of the EPA and support of the Endangered Species Act. Both may have solid bases in the historical record, and neither man will be remembered for it. Chrétien will be fortunate indeed if he escapes prosecution for Adscam, hardly a qualification for an international role model.

However, the Equality Forum did give Chrétien a chance to trot out a new defense for the Liberal Party against an expected no-confidence vote by Stephen Harper and the Tories. The former PM used the occasion to turn the election issue away from rampant Liberal corruption and graft into a gay-rights issue instead…

…This attempt to spin Adscam into a gay-rights issue is not only desperate, it’s laughable. It shows that Chrétien and his former party may have reached a point where the only defense left to them is an American-style smear campaign against their accusers on baseless and irrelevant grounds of bigotry.

Of course, Chrétien does want to comment on blatant corruption in the Liberal Party and his government.

Look for his indictment after the fraud trials of Brault, Coffin and Guite.

Don’t you think they will give up their own boss to save their own asses?

You betcha!