The Fake Scandal and the Dogs of Dumbarton

There is a bridge near the Scottish town of Dumbarton that has a terrifying reputation. 

For it is said that hundreds of dogs have leaped over its sides for no apparent reason, only to end up dead in the rocky gorge below. 

Since it is Scotland one can't be sure who or what is to blame, furry creatures like mink moving around in the gorge, or a ghost that is said to haunt a nearby mansion.

But I was interested to see that somebody has compared the phenomenon to the hysteria sparked by the fake scandal.



For as Andrew Cohen writes, the little melodrama that has consumed this country for nine long weeks, is also madness. 

To foreigners, our current melodrama is madness, a kind of derangement syndrome. “Are you nuts?” asks a visiting friend from London. The poor man – a leading international lawyer – is staggered by the circus in Canada’s Parliament. He sees us as a country of stability, sobriety and moderation. 

A fevered fake scandal, that in a world under siege by sinister right-wing forces, amounts to nothing more than what Cohen calls a "sordid little scream." 

Saint Jane denies “a power play” as she gives interviews, there to slip in the stiletto once again; Saint Jody records a conversation with an unknowing public servant. With every move, they weaken their government and strengthen the Conservatives, unmoved by women’s rights and Indigenous affairs.

Commentators have lost a sense of balance, seeing evil in ineptitude. The Conservatives, who denounced Wilson-Raybould last fall, now trumpet her virtue. Her loyalists ignore her lethargy as justice minister who left Stephen Harper’s policies in place and who wanted an outsider as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

But as I have also pointed out, it does seem to appeal to those in this country who love to flagellate themselves.

My, my, we are on hard on ourselves. To critics we cannot do anything right at home, where we have full employment, social peace and national unity unseen in a generation. A recent report card by an esteemed professor of international affairs and three graduate students at Carleton University gives the government’s gestural foreign policy a “C-” but overlooks two signal achievements: The successful re-negotiation of NAFTA and the admission of 58,000 Syrian refugees. In Canada, what good are laurels if you can’t recognize them?

There are many reasons for that, and many reasons the fake scandal was able to consume the life of a country for so long, and all of them are deeply troubling.

But I believe I covered most of them, and although the Con media is still trying to beat a dead horse...



Or glorify those two Con tools.

I like this cover better...



I believe most decent Canadians have had enough of the fake scandal...


And that the time has come to move on, and deal with the real threat to our Canada.

The campaign by Andrew Scheer and his ghastly Cons to turn our country into a right-wing nightmare, more Trumpling than Canadian.



Which would complete Stephen Harper's sinister vow to change this country beyond recognition.

The dogs of Dumbarton jumped to their deaths because they couldn't see into The Abyss. Will we make the same fatal mistake?

For we are now only 199 days away from the election.

This country is literally fighting for its life.

And as I've said many times before, and will say again, failure is not an option...