Two episodes over the weekend illustrated one of the conflicts between the land o' blogs on the Internet, sometimes called the blogosphere, and the world inhabited by lesser mortals.
The first one was a draft commentary I put together on the Borden AIDS story. You've already seen my posts in which I named the accused. It's bee public since the outset. Well it seems some news outlets will no longer identify the accused in the case since she is herself a victim of crime.
It makes for some curious reporting. Someone dependent solely on that one news outlet will not have information the rest of us share. The accused in this case is, well, the accused. In the absence of a publication ban, trial information is public and the name of the accused is open to publication.
What it boils down to is this: if I do the commentary, I'll rework the thing to avoid mentioning the name of the accused. I'll do that solely to respect the editorial policy of the news outlet involved. I'll keep it here in this blog since the information is already out there and there is no legal injunction against using it.
The second case is testimony by one of the witnesses at the Gomery inquisition. I chose the word advisedly because I am not sure what is going to come from this that the cops haven't seen already. For example, the testimony that has everyone in Ottawa a-twitter, comes from one of the two people facing criminal charges in the case.
If this individual hadn't put his complete information in front of the cops already, I'd be pretty surprised. While it sure as heck doesn't appear to exonerate him, it implicates others.
There is a publication ban in this case, so I cannot legally tell you what was said. Truth is, I don't know for certain what the testimony was.
What I can tell you is that the blogosphere is itself vibrating with the electric buzz from some American bloggers who have reported what they think is the testimony. That has been picked up by Canadian bloggers, including Norman Spector (Mulroney's ex-chief of staff and therefore a completely unbiased source) and Warren Kinsella (the lawyer cum self-promoter who brought us the devastating Barney attack on Stockwell Day as part of Liberal campaigns past).
The blog buzz has reached such a pitch that Rosemary Thompson (CTV) included a picture of the American blog front page in her report for the national news on Sunday night.
Now I'll say this:
Based on what I have read, I really cannot see how accusations of corruption against a previous regime will affect the Martin government. Some bloggers - like Spector - are likely trafficking in as much innuendo as fact "Oh I wish you knew what I knew cause if you did, Martin is toast." His approach would warrant some Liberal recounting the litany of Tories from Spector's time who did hard time for political crime, or others, Like Sinc Stevens who was cast into the pit for trying to run a business out of his ministerial office.
People who live in glass houses, Normie, people who live in glass houses. But more to the point, Norm, would the history of corruption under Mulroney disqualify his progeny from winning next time out? If you want Harper in 24 Sussex, trying selling Harper.
Since I can't give you the testimony either, if I had it, nor can I point you to people claiming to have it (I like my ass out of jail, thanks) , I do have the capacity to do something a little different. I'll give you some links to follow for interesting comment on Gomery:
Warren Kinsella - He's a Liberal and a dedicated partisan, but man I have to say he is a bit much to take sometimes.
Norman Spector - He's a Conservative, and like Warren, is equally hard to take slightly more often. Only slightly. Big value here is the wide range of links Norm has to other stories on Gomery. Big downside: it's Norman Spector.
Nealenews - The look of Matt Drudge's now infamous Drudge Report. As I recall this site yesterday was linking to the US site. He must have spoken to a lawyer in the meantime.
Oddly, CTNnews.ca has also taken down Rosemary's story and they did it in the matter of a few seconds this morning as I was trying to download it.
Judge Gomery may be boring at times and at others he may be amusing (Chretien made an ass of him pretty easily) but he is still a judge with full powers to slap Canadians in jail.
Surf the net and use google, by the way, and you'll find the testimony in question.