Helena of Troy

Yes, she’s the junior minister whose actions launched a thousand verbal attacks.  A number of serious blunders rightly caused alarm and in the new Ottawa such developments take on a life of their own with no stop in sight.And so yesterday I posted a blog stating that perhaps enough is enough; time to call off the hounds.  Then I hunkered down and waited for the negative response that was sure to follow.  Except it didn’t.  A flood of comments and emails came in, virtually all of them calling for a more respectful Ottawa, one in which citizens, the media, and politicians themselves acted with more decorum.A few of the comments were obviously from Conservatives supporters who appreciated my observations but seriously upbraided the opposition parties for their virulent attacks on the junior minister.  I thank them for writing in, but I’d like to say a couple of things to them as well.The first is simple enough: Where were such reasoned Conservative comments when the present government vilified Stephane Dion for almost two years on the public airwaves?  Whatever people thought of the man’s policies, there was the general belief that he was upstanding, decent and honest beyond normal behaviour.  The negative ads funded by Conservative coffers and running for months on end were something new to Canada.  It was kind of like Canada’s version of the Bounty Hunter, except Mr. Dion wasn’t hiding.  He was in plain view, transparently putting out his policies, and living a personal life beyond repute.  In other words, he didn’t make the debilitating ethical decisions that Ms. Guergis did.  If the commentators use the junior minister’s case as a call for more respectfulness in the House, why didn’t they do so with Mr. Dion, or Mr. Ignatieff for that matter, who suffers from the same brutal treatment of public humiliation, both inside and outside the House?  You can disagree with their politics, but humiliation is something different altogether.My second observation concerns the treatment of Ms. Guergis from her own party.  Normally disciplined, with a strong avoidance bent, they nevertheless unleashed some of their party voices on the junior minister in fervent fashion.  Someone in her own party decided she was fair game and let Canadians know it, repeatedly.  Where were the blog commenters on this?  If the over-the-top negativism by opposition parties is wrong in their mind, why let the government off the hook for doing the same thing and consuming one of their own?These are just observations, but I think they are valid.  Ottawa has become swamp of sheer negativity;  we all know it yet it continues.  The actions of Helena Guergis propelled us into a new dimension of such things, where even her own party attempted to get in on the kill.  These are troubling facts, made even more so by people claiming they want more respect in Ottawa, but only as it gives their own particular party preference.  It’s just not on.  We’ve now launched a new kind of warfare where people step over their own to maintain power.  If you believe it’s time to stop it, then I would only ask that you apply that principle across the board.  If it's not good enough for the opposition, it's not for the Conservatives either.To accept anything else is just blind partisanship. By permitting it, we can never reclaim what we have so sadly lost.