"October surprises" in April.

 

LAYTON CAUGHT IN MASSAGE PARLOR!

HARPER'S ANTI-CANADA QUOTES REVEALED!

IGNATIEFF EXPOSED AS WANNABE YANK IRAQ-INVADER!

We're into the Hallowe'en phase of the federal election campaign.

A fat dossier of potentially damaging Harper quotes over his lifetime, first compiled nearly a decade ago, somehow lands in the Grit camp two weeks ago.

The leader of the Grit camp, meanwhile, is depicted an Iraq-invasion mongering tool of George W. Bush, sort of, in a photo that a high-ranking Tory operative is accused of providing the upstart Sun News Network (SNN) last week. 

And now Jack Layton (shown campaigning Friday in Courtenay, B.C.), who especially couldn't hope to escape the smear season, given the NDP surge, is reported by the same SNN to, according to an unnamed, now retired, Toronto police officer, seen by the officer and his partner naked in a Chinatown massage parlor in Toronto some 15 years ago.  

Full disclosure: On eight separate occasions in the mid-2000s, someone bursting into the massage room of my chiropractor would have found me lying starkers on a bed. I can feel my reputation rapidly slipping away as I try to explain my conduct. Of  how the young woman massaging me was gradually (miraculously) removing the previous decades' of accumulated stress from my major muscle groups, notably in my shoulders, that had seized up. I swear nothing untoward happened. I was lectured incessantly on the merit of bike lanes by possibly the GTA's only masseuse who knew the names of each anti-bike-lane member of city council. This work was done in her basement clinic on a Toronto sidestreet, which makes the whole enterprise sound even dodgier.

Layton insists that, while he did obtain a massage from a facility properly licensed with the city as a registered massage parlor, he also did not engage in improper behavior. He recalls the two officers telling him the premises were suspected of being used for illicit purposes, and that he should stay away from the place. Layton gave the cops his telephone number and address and left. Later that day he told his wife, Olivia Chow, MP for Trinity-Spadina, about the incident. She issued a statement yesterday saying she had known previously of her husband's massage-clinic appointment, "as I always do," and has seconded Layton's assertion he had done nothing wrong.  

What's interesting here is that through Layton's eight election campaigns since 1996, that incident has never been revealed. Has been non-newsworthy until this highly convenient time, though it occurred in the news-media capital of English Canada, and starred an individual even then among the most prominent people in the city.

By 1996, Jack Layton had served for ages on Toronto city council, and had endured a high-profile loss in a run for mayor. In a world of "gotcha journalism," Layton would have been a prize indeed for the scandal-hungry Toronto papers.

But no, we did not learn about this incident - an entirely innocent one, according to the only two people who will go on the record about it - for a decade and a half. We're first learning of this stale "news" 72 hours before Election Day, on the only occasion in its 79-year history when the CCF/NDP is poised to form a national government or official opposition.

The timing alone was sufficient reason for Sun News Network (a.ka. Faux News North) to hold the story until it could be confirmed with real people whose names aren't lifted off tombstones.

And, obviously, the big question for our unnamed retired police officer? Why tell your story now, what's your motive in doing so, and what contacts have you had with any political parties or individuals? A less obvious question: With three all-news TV networks to choose from, why did contact the weeks'-old conservative one with your story?

I can guarantee that curious minds that want to know the identify and motive of this snitch with nothing to actually snitch about won't be satisfied prior to May 2. After May 2, the story will simply die. It will no longer matter, the smear having done his damage. That's how smears work.

Only in the second case above do we know the alleged smear artist. And Patrick Muttart, erstwhile deputy chief of staff to then-prime minister Stephen Harper, has been summilarly exiled by the Tory camp. (Goodness, the company our PM keeps! As if Bruce Carson wasn't enough.) Having been made to walk the plank, Muttart has reverted to omerta, though, again through unnamed sources, he is said to be upset by how the Tory campaign has treated him, poor dear. 

It's odd that Faux News North would examine the purported Iggy photo the Tory operative provided it, determine that it was not a photo of Ignatieff but of a U.S. soldier, and therefore not use it. Yet just 48 hours later, FNN stooped to shoddy journalism in running an unsourced story in which Ignatieff's chief rival, Layton, is hazily depicted as a patron of an illicit bawdy house.

Odd that this tale would lie dormant until the first time in its 79-year history the NDP was a threat to replacing the Grits as the official opposition or even the Tories as the governing party.

We shouldn't call them "dirty tricks," which suggests Lucy pulling Charlie Brown's football away at the last minute. Dirty tricks, executed properly (that leaves out Gordon Liddy, planner of the botched Watergate burglary), can subvert democracy. Indeed, that's the point.

By this means, of course, we first had Stephen Harper thrust upon us as PM in 2006. On that occasion, it was the Grits that were smeared, and too late in the day to recover.

The RCMP, world's least competent national police force - which almost allowed one of our PM's and his wife to be killed in their beds at 24 Sussex, then Tasered an innocent, tragically confused immigrant to death at Vancouver International - took it upon itself at about this point in the 2006 campaign to insert itself into the political process.

In the 2006 campaign, the Mounties "revealed" that then finance minister Ralph Goodale had possibly acted improperly in his handling of income-trust policy. With the very real Liberal sponsorship scandal as the background context, a great many voters were prepared to believe this new, unfounded "report" of possible misconduct. From which, in the fullness of time, no hint of actual misconduct was ever shown to have occurred. Too late, of course. And to this day we don't know who or for what purpose the RCMP operatives chose to meddle in an election campaign.  

There's a natural inclination to feel badly for the victims of smear jobs through history. Save it. We're the victims. We the electorate. The thought that even one among us will vote against Harper, or Ignatieff, or Layton, because of dirty tricks is repugnant. Smears are an assault on our democracy in denying voters the full range of honorable candidates to choose from.

John McCain (shown, in 2007, preparing for a second South Carolina primary race) was sailing toward the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 when shoppers in South Carolina emerged from supermarkets to find fliers under the windshield wipers of their cars informing them that McCain, frontrunner in the Palmetto State primary, was the father of a black love child. Signed, unsigned. And that, plus the votes of the five Republican-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, is how George W. Bush became president. From which followed 9/11, the botched Iraq invasion, Katrina, the Great Recession, a record trillion-dollar-plus deficit, and eight lost years in stem-cell research. 

That's why my despair for McCain is measure. My sorrow is directed, instead, at a great country deprived of a genuine democratic choice in an election.

McCain, of course, went down in flames in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary, breathing life, finally, into a Bush campaign which to that point had lost a series of contests to McCain.

And, as I noted earlier, we still don't know who smeared the hero of the Hanoi Hilton on behalf of Dubya, the chronically AWOL National Guard airman. Karl Rove is widely assumed to have been the mastermind, and the fact he's not tried to clear his name - establish his honor - more than a decade later suggests the widely held assumption is true. But smear-job artists, Muttart aside, very seldom pay a price. Rove thrives as a TV talking head and campaign stratgeist for hire.

If you're in the market for a permanent governing majority that lasts six years, Karl's your man. And somewhere out there is a retired cop who can regale you with tales of naked men he's seen in Chinese massage parlors. Can't say he witnessed anything beyond the "wink wink" stigma, but that may suffice.

Related

Kinsella: "I was on Sun News tonight. My take: if a political party was ultimately behind this story – and it’s highly unlikely a political party wasn’t – they’ll be really, really sorry if they get found out. Voters aren’t stupid. Things like this don’t happen by accident."

Edmonton Sun report.

Photos: Layton, CP; McCain, Getty Images.

 

Comments

[Dave-O]

Same time as Ford lifts Harper in the air and declares him the chosen one, this gets leaked to SUN infotainment.

There should be an recent id code left with this file on the Toronto Police Services data system. Ford needs to plug the privacy security holes in his police service Ford needs to step up his game and become the Mayor of Canada's greatest city.

[Ward Zehr]

typical liberal media response..deny , then smear. Sun Media are to be congratulated..thank goodness for honest reporting . It`s a great addition to the Cdn. media from the crap at cbc,ctv. toronto "red star". You sure don`t like it when the cosy monopoly is threatened.

[Gmckibbin]

Who do you think you are fooling? eJackuLayton got caught exploiting asian sex slaves and will pay dearly.

[Wascally Wabbit]

An example of how badly this will backfire is the conflagration that Ray Heard - a longtime media executive with various print and TV outlets in his CV - and a regular guest talking head in these early days of Sun News Network - found himself consumed in when he broke this story on his FB profile.
Even right leaning and happily - senior Liberal party members - verbally whacked Ray's head soundly.
Even Alex Himelfarb - former PCO Secretary aka top Federal public servant - who is very cautious about being perceived to be taking sides in any poitcal discussion - jumped in condemning this smear.
I suspect that - like many of these dirty tricks - it will have the reverse effect to that which was intended.
Instead of frightening voters away from Jack Layton and the NDP - it will in fact toughen the resolve of those voters who might just be teetering on the verge of voting NDP - to firmly cast their vote for the only party who can say it has maintained a clean Canadian campaign all through!

[cangar]

Sun Media has been adding a lot of dirt to this campaign. This latest is bad. Although not as bad as what Jack Layton did to innocent Liberal candidate David Oliver, as that was completely fabricated and Layton purposely hogged the press spreading lies about an innocent man. However, Layton did lose a defamation lawsuit and have to pay damages. Perhaps Layton can look back at the damage he has inflicted to get where he is, look at this latest incident, and learn from it all. Let's all hope so.

[cangar]

Actually, did the RCMP reveal their investigation of Goodale to voters during the campaign, as you report, Mr. Olive? I was under the impression that the RCMP sent a letter to the NDP who had requested the investigation and the NDP released the contents of that letter to voters - hoping to sway their votes, which did happen. Please clarify, as I thought that is the way it went down, but perhaps I recall incorrectly. If you are right, did the RCMP hold an actual press conference or just send a tip to the media?

[cangar]

Okay, I just googled and it seems I am right and it isn't as you have written, Mr. Olive. The NDP asked the RCMP to investigate Goodale, the RCMP sent a letter to the NDP saying they would investigate, and the NDP released that letter to the press. So, it was the NDP that took this to the media, and hence, to voters during an election. At least that is how several news outlets reported it at the time.

[Darwin O'Connor]

The Sun took the unusual step of releasing the name of the source for the Ignatieff story because they concluded the story was false. Had they believed the story we wouldn't know the source and probably wouldn't even know it came from the Conservatives.

I suspect the Layton story is from a Liberal supporter who dislikes the NDP and doesn't want to see them win. It is probably not the Liberals themselves.

[RMT]

Incredulous that a councilor be found at a raided massage parlor and claim to be there for therapy. l guess Jack, has lost the RMT vote. The story makes me sick.

[cangar]

Darwin, you think the Sun released that name because the thought the story was false? First, they ran with the story when I think we can conclude they knew it was false, even if they didn't use the photograph. Someone said they found the participant list of the meeting Ignatieff was at using google and less than a minute of time - and confirmed it was a meeting which included human rights activists and was not a "plan the military invasion" meeting. Even for Sun I can't imagine they spend less than 5 minutes checking their main story. I assume they released the name in order to keep the false story in the news longer and to allow them to print the photograph anyway. From the Sun comments sections, a lot of people said they thought it looked like Ignatieff and didn't believe it wasn't.

From Ignatieff planning the invasion to Mao reincarnated, the Sun has made it pretty clear there are few boundaries they won't cross in trying to damage the Liberals. If they could do something more, true or not, why wouldn't they? If they had some Liberal supporter that they could pass off as connected to Ignatieff, true or false, why wouldn't they? There are still some Liberal held ridings which need an extra push to go CPC and give Harper his majority.

[dolive]

Hi Darwin: Thanks for clearing that up, makes logical sense.
For those here, including RMT, who find Layton's conduct egregious and his explication disengenuous, these are matters of morality I everyone has to decide for themselves, obviously. If, as with Clinton, Layton paid for received sexual services, I'm disappointed and disgusted. I'm not so disgusted with all such clients, but Layton has championed women's rights, and he would have betrayed his wife - a hypocrite and an adulter. (Unlike certain men, notably in the U.S. South, I do regard non-intercourse forms of ejaculation as "sex," while many men give themselves a pass on that.
All that (too much) said, it seems to me odd that as strong-willed a person as Olivia Chow (a friend of some 20 years) would accept such rank behavior by her husband and then, whenever it was raised over the next 15 years, lie about it, insisting she knew of the appointment in question beforehand, was told later that same day after the incident about it by her husband.
Layton (also a friend of the same 20 years) is a known cyclist, it remains his principal means of transit. Why on Earth would he park the bike in front of a building where illicit sex was to be bought? We don't have the address, but it's described as Chinatown, and the Chinatown in question - downtown - is a community in which both Chow and Layton and their bikes are highly recognizable.
You do know that the OPP has opened an investigation in, not Layton's behavior, but the retired officer's conduct in revealing information to the public without the authority to do so. As Layton has noted, he was among the least popular councilors with the police - Chow was their Enemy #1 - because each were among those routinely probing allegations of police brutality and other reports of malpractice.
This situations almost without fail are nuanced. It might well be that in a depressed state Layton sought illicit sex against his better judgment, and ours. It may be that he sought only a legitimate massage, and rather than seek one from a practitioner referred by his GP, as I did, he dropped into a dodgy place on impulse.
Under the circumstances, it would have been best, I think, for Layton to, as Obama responded to the Jeremiah Wright threat to his campaign, make a public statement reassuring us that never has he cheated on his wife. Period.
Before I leave this, for now, RMT, I'd ask only that you consider the larger issue of where we started - who do we want running the country? For most of his adult life, Stephen Harper has believed that Canada is a second-rate country. That's pretty much bred in the bone, his worldview. I'm all for constant improvement (kaizen), but Harper's starting point has been Canada's inferiority. Mine is that we have a great country to build on, which I believe is where Iggy is coming from. The problem with Iggy is that he's been AWOL during many of the defining moments of modern Canada - everything from the NEP's devastating effect on Western Canadian alienation to rancor of the national FTA debate to almost losing the country on the nail-biting night of the latest Quebec referendum. In this campaign, the Grits are running for re-election two former NDP premiers. Layton has been consistent in his social-democratic views and has chosen for a political lifetime to work through the NDP, the least politically viable means for him to advance his causes. As such, he's put principle ahead of career advancement by never joining one of the two parties that form national governments. Clinton lost many admirers permanently over one detestable lapse in judgment that last about six weeks. I relate to those folks. Realistically, I also have to consider that the incident is not of my concern, but of his family's, and that what was of public concern was the 22 million new jobs during Clinton's two terms, and the sharp drop in crime, drop-out and unwed preganancy rates, plus the first narrowing of the gap between rich and poor - much, if not all, of which had to do with Clinton administration policies. There is an expression of having to take the good with the bad, and if this one Layton incident 15 years ago by a currently 61-year-old man fighting prostate cancer while running the best campaign in the 79-year-history of the CCF/NDP requires me to choose, even as a matter of morality, I still will be voting, with enthusiasm, for my NDP candidate Peggy Nash tomorrow in Parkdale-High Park.
Regarding David Oliver, I'm sorry I just don't know that story. I will have to Google it. Without Googling, I know that Peter MacKay did in selling out Joe Clark and thousands of other Progressive Conservatives, including myself, was a betrayal of at least as great a magnitude as what happened to Mr. Oliver.
Finally Cangar, you recitation of events strikes me as accurate. That incident, which helped bring Harper to power, did begin with a woman member of the federal NDP caucus (sorry I can't recall the name) who forwarded a complaint to the RCMP. I was terribly remiss in forgetting that important element of the story when I blogged above on this. So what goes around comes around - is that the expression? My abiding concern with the RCMP's conduct in that affair - and it was expressed widely at the time, even before that campaign ended - was that the RCMP should have had the basic good jugdment not to disclose receipt of the complaint, that if the NDP chose to make it public to say "no comment" rather than that it was opening an investigation. There would be time after the vote to open an investigation. It's a matter of standard practice in parliamentary democracies that the "permanent government" of bureaucrats and other employees, including the RCMP, Canada Post, the Canada Ports Corp., AECL and so on have zero to say about everything and everything for public consumption during an election campaign. That's for their own self-protection as much as anything, and it's a longtime codified requirement as periodically updated by the Privy Council Office that oversees the federal bureaucracy and also the public-sector unions to which most federal employees belong. Instead, the RCMP officers and managers in question decided - because they were on acid or something - to trash all that generations' old precedent and have some fun at the expense of a government they didn't like.
WW: I'm not surprised about what Ray Heard endured on FB. Bear in mind it reflects more on Heard than the issue at hand. He's an odd bird, to put it charitably.

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