Here's what Premier Danny Williams said to reporters, yesterday:
If three quarters of the people who were reported on happen to be Tory, then — if that was the case and there was some negativity — there then it would be disproportionate to the Tories," Williams said.Even though the problems in the House started after 1997 (by the AG's own reports), Danny Williams wants to use a whole bunch of other members of the House, mostly Liberal, to try and counterbalance what happened over the past decade.
"If we do this over the complete period of time, it's a fair representation, because it's all relative."
Notice, by the way, that in the past decade, Danny Williams himself has been in the House of Assembly either as Leader of the Opposition or as Premier for six years.
60% of the key period.
Whatever the Auditor General was originally going to do was directly relevant to judging the behaviour of all people seeking re-election. It's especially relevant to use detailed information to balance what those individuals knew and did with what they promised to do.
The Premier also said this:
"If people are going to decide on what's right or wrong in regards of what [incumbents] did was appropriate or inappropriate, then they are in a position to measure what went on before and what went on with other governments, and what the standard was," Williams said.That assumes that what voters see is a complete record, let alone one that is relevant to the goings-on in the House over the past decade.
Don't count on that level of disclosure.
After all, the Premier still hasn't come clean on what he knew about the the secret bonus cash, when.
And that's really the crux of the problem for the Premier.
He set the bar.
He should be judged against what undertakings he gave to the electorate.
What Clyde Wells did should be irrelevant. Danny Williams just made it germane.
He won't like the consequences of that comparison.
Weighed.
Measured.
Came up really short.