This Humble Man

What a dreadful indignity to impose upon a man of outstanding virtue, a man who sacrificed himself for the advancement of the country he represented in an admirable display of selflessness. After steering the country toward environmental responsibility, moral 'suasion through condemnation of South African apartheid, bringing us closer to our American cousins through the Free Trade Agreement, this is his thanks.

We scorned him for his Irish blather, detested his greasy ingratiation, and spurned his attempts to make the country a finer, better place to live through the Meech Lake Accord.

Yet we returned him to office with one majority after another.

Until finally, the electorate could no longer tolerate the stench of his political entitlement, recalling hazily his condemnation of John Turner in their famous televised pre-election debate when he belittled his adversary with his scathing remark, "You had a choice, sir" and then himself indulged heartily in pork-barrelling. Another kind of political Canadian heritage, realized by one party after another, just the price of doing business, as Jean Chretien allowed, during Adscam.

But it was the 'atrocity' that a vengeful country and an even more vengeful Chretien government visited upon him with the RCMP investigation into the Airbus affair that most wounded this great and greatly misunderstood Canadian. The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney moaned and wept and raged over the devastation that wrought upon his family, beyond emotion when recalling how it affected them: "Nicholas was 10 years old". Um, yes.

But this was not the purpose of the Oliphant commission.

It did present Mr. Mulroney, however, with the opportunity of lashing out at his tormentors, the news media, print and electronic, reporters who relished writing nasty books of innuendo and false premises, besmirching his good name, ruining his reputation. Of course someone like Stevie Cameron was also responsible for the fact that he suborned his own high executive office like someone addicted to protecting himself through outright denying, denying, denying.

And of course it was the Fifth Estate's hounding that compelled him to become a munitions and arms lobbyist for an international arms manufacturer, and to accept filthy lucre under the table, squirrel it away in a home safety deposit box, and deny, deny, deny. What he actually did for the money in allying himself with a character-questionable lobbyist whom saner heads refused contact with will not readily be revealed.

Mr. Mulroney's lawyers and his own foxy mind more than capable of inventing events in retrospect to claim perfectly reasonable explanations for perfectly inexplicable behaviour. Why did he lie to the Airbus enquiry? Why he did no such thing; he merely responded to the hair-splitting extent he felt he was required to. Failing to pay tax on his retaining fee - well this seasoned lawyer and lawmaker had no idea he was required to.

It was safely put away, not used, not until he decided to pay tax on it, once word got out so very inconveniently. It was sitting there, in trust, not considered by this man to be part of his income. His own perfectly peculiar rationalization. And who brought to Canada the Goods and Services Tax? Well, that's for everyone else to ponder and to pay, not for him. He excels at re-structuring reality, this humble man.

We are an ungrateful nation, yes we are. Talk about lugubrious, head-banging sanctimony, greed and entitled sympathy.