The millions of salary dollars enjoyed by staffers in the PMO were apparently unable to deal with the latest crisis. Harper's handlers dealt very badly with the whole Duffy-Brazeau-Harb-Wallin fiasco -- in spite of the fact that that's exactly what they get paid to do. Make it all go away.
They didn't do their jobs.
How dumb do you have to be to get that these senators were breaking the rules and actually committing criminal activity? Read the constitution and you will know that what they did was illegal. How dumb were ex-journalists Wallin and Duffy not to have figured out how badly they had messed up? I mean, this is exactly the kind of story those two would have jumped all over when they lived on the other side of the gravy train.
The file footage of Wallin is pathetic. There she is, dyed blonde hanks of hair hanging, sitting in this committee and that, looking very officious with half-glasses perched on her beak, while the whole time she is bilking the taxpayer for more than $350,000 in travel expenses in over just two years! How much does it cost to fly to Wadena Saskatchewan, Pam? Not that much.
I was quite young when I worked in public relations for IBM Canada and DuPont of Canada, but even at 21 and 22 I knew how to handle PR disasters. One of my products was Freon and teens were inhaling it and dying. We had to get out in front of that one and we did. We also had to allay the fears of "Mrs. Housewife" about the dangers of Teflon-coated frying pans. We got over that one too. To be a good PR person, you have to get outside of the company and think like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". Perception is reality.
This simple fact seems to be what Harper and the PMO have forgotten. They now believe their own press and can't admit wrongdoing. What they needed to do was dump Brazeau-Wallin-Duffy-Harb immediately and wait for the audit to take its course. What the PM's chief of staff was doing giving Mike Duffy $90,000 is beyond comprehension. Not a good plan. But it shows that reality has slipped completely from their grasp.
Harper needs to get out in front of this one. Otherwise it ain't goin' away.
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Checked cbc.ca to see what the issue was. I used to think Pamela Wallin was a very attractive woman but seeing her now and reading the allegations... do they now have all-you-can-eat buffets in every Canadian airport? Or just the ones she flies through?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to note that she is 'only' 60. She sure doesn't look it. Effects of jet lag?
The hair doesn't work anymore. It makes her look way older, trying to look younger. That, plus the few extra chins.
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