Friday, December 14, 2007

The credibility gap...

OK, so right now the Globe and Mail's online poll is "Whose testimony to the Commons ethics committee do you find more credible? Karlheinz Schreiber's or Brian Mulroney's.

At the moment, 81% find Schreiber to be more credible, and 19% find our former Prime Minister to be more credible.

Why such a huge gap (given that Schreiber is OBVIOUSLY so credibility challenged)?

I think it's this.

Schreiber's testimony is basically:

"I'm a slimy rich guy who spreads around money (other people's and my own) in order to maintain influence with my many "friends" in positions of power and influence around the world. I take pains not to create paper trails of these payments (which could be "misinterpreted") and, frankly, I give out so much money to so many influential politicians without ever keeping good track of it (deliberately) that my stories sometime fluctuate a bit.

Mulroney's testimony is basically:

"Scehreiber is a slimy rich guy who spreads around money (other people's and his own) in order to maintain influence with his many 'friends'. He's a well-established briber of public officials who is under indictment for influence peddling, and he's a shady character with no real credibility at all who's stories are constantly shifting...

...Oh, and that $225,000 he gave to me, in cash, and which I hid away in private safes and safety deposit boxes (studiously avoiding creating my OWN paper trail) and which I didn't disclose to anyone until right after Schreiber was arrested? That was, like, TOTALLY for legitimate work."

Yeah. OK.

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1 comment:

Idealistic Pragmatist said...

Heh. Insightful, funny, and almost certainly true.