EOD.
Paul Wells has been waging a valiant, if seemingly futile campaign to diffuse the Gomery testimony story, criticize the media use of the word "explosive" when discussing it, and drag the whole discussion onto something less prurient. I use the term advisedly, given that some people seem to derive a strange fetishistic state of arousal these days when the word Gomery is used. Use your imaginations.
So today he just links to all the media outlets still describing testimony last week before Justice Gomery as being explosive.
Paul makes a valid point, and one apparently not lost on one Stephen Harper. His sound bite for today (left over from yesterday) has been about the need to find a new message for Quebeckers besides corruption or separation. He tosses this one on the table in discussing the prospect the Cons will vote to defeat the government on a Bloc non-confidence motion due next week.
Anyway, those with long memories will chuckle at the idea of Conservatives, progressive or otherwise, presuming to lecture on the need for a new message for Quebec.
Anyway, while Paul is tackling the intellectual road, let's wander over to the one I sometimes travel, namely the low road of sarcasm and ridicule.
What kind of explosive is this Gomery testimony, one might inquire of the scribblers busily recycling their Gomery phrases for outlets like the Sun chain, the Globe and even Reuters.
There a nuclear explosions that kill everything and leave the landscape uninhabitable for centuries. Personally, I'd suggest Paul's upcoming essay is going to lean to the idea that the whole Gomery tesitmony discussion is of the nookyoolur explosion kind. Self-frickin immolation. And without the black humour of Dr. Strangelove.
There are plain old high explosives which kill everything within a certain radius from the blast and injure dozens more. Possibility. I could buy that interpretation potentially.
There is a fuel-air explosion, in which gas fumes seep into every crack and then get ignited. Big bang. Lots of flame and much scorching.
This should not be confused with napalm, which is one of the genuinely nastiest kinds of explosions there is. Opposition types might like Gomery to be napalm dropped on the bastions of the Liberal Party. Tends to produce something called crispy critters.
But being a father of two children both of whom were breast-fed, the only word I viscerally associate with "explosive" is a bowel movement.
I still remember the look on my father's face as he held his first grandchild just as Number One Son of Number One Son did what nature intended. Big noise. Distressing motion inside the diaper and the house. Foul odor. Severe look of concern on Grandpa, who had little experience with these things and thought something truly hideous was about to occur. But it was quickly wiped up and life went on. The grown-ups went back to talking about something they needed to worry about while other processes worked as they should.
Far be it from me to drag this little metaphor all the way into the depths to which one could go. Heck it may be a totally unworkable metaphor. Suffice to say that political dialogue nationally has sunk to what amounts to little more than the results of my son's feasting. Big noise. Distressing motions in the House. Really bad smell. Look of concern.
But ultimately, this matter will wind up in a bin somewhere.
And while we are paying attention to the noise, some major issues we should be worried about - like the ones Paul will likely raise - are going unattended.
If the guys in Ottawa are dumb enough to blunder into an election over this load, I'd wager that the electorate will reward them appropriately.
For the love of heaven and the country, will some politician in Ottawa please start talking about major national issues?
Let the courts and police and the Gomery Inquisition do their jobs.
Maybe it's the fear of the diaper pail that has Mr. Harper changing his tune today.
Or maybe Paul's pleadings are finally penetrating someone's skull.