George Bush

Six Ways to Sunday: Your weekly round-up of pop culture talking points

Did petition by former students cause cancellation?

Following yesterday’s Boston Globe story, Mark Leccese considers how Harvard has been used as a political slur.

The novelist talks with Kenneth Whyte about growing up Buckley, losing his parents, and facing down the right

I was wrong to repeatedly state Osama can run but not hide. Good hider, it turns out.

Bush has protected more ocean territory than anyone in history

From the Globe’s Adam Radwanski.

The press conference this morning for the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading was almost as strange as a Coen brothers movie. It was roomful of studio-selected journalists, rather than an all-access TIFF press conference, so that may account for the unusual decorum. There were still about 50 of us there. Brad Pitt walked into the room as if he owned, looking very dapper in a silver vest, joshing and joking with the assembled media. He sat on a stage beside the Coen brothers, with Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich sitting at either end. And guess what? With perhaps the biggest movie star on the planet sitting up there, available, most of the questions were directed at the two nerdy siblings who made the movie. There was not a single personal question about Angelina and the twins, never mind Jennifer Aniston, whose concurrent presence at TIFF has fostered all manner of speculative nonsense in the media about a Brad-Jennifer reunion. The closest anyone came was a query about the possibility of Brad and Angelina working together again, to which Brad quipped, “Angie and I are working together every day, I can guarantee it.”

(This post will be updated below. Last updated at 2:40am.)

The popular guess among the dozen or so reporters gathered in the foyer had Maxime Bernier as good as gone. Only one member of the press gallery foresaw something less interesting to come. And, to be fair, on most matters of Hill anticipation, he probably would’ve been guessing right.

But here came the Prime Minister, walking a bit slow and looking a bit glum. (Were those tears in his eyes?) A small gaggle of Conservative MPs lurked in the shadows, apparently unaware of what was to come. So too loitered a few opposition members, the House having just voted on some matter or another. And, surely, as the Prime Minister arrived at the mic stand, those reporters nominated to ask questions—two English, two French—prayed their Bernier-centric preparations would prove worthwhile.

And so they did. Bernier had resigned. Something about leaving some top secret documents where they shouldn’t have been left. A very grave error, the Prime Minister said. “A failure to uphold accepted standards on government documents,” he explained, managing to make it seem Mr. Bernier had merely failed to fill out the proper form in registering for some health insurance.

And yet. “This is not to do with the Minister’s private life,” the Prime Minister assured.

And for that matter, “I thank Mr. Bernier for recognizing the mistake himself.”

Indeed. He’s a hero. Of sorts. Though perhaps one a bit slow on the uptake.

As the Prime Minister has it, Mr. Bernier realized his boo boo last evening and admitted it to his boss today. Never mind that Mr. Harper, at approximately one this afternoon, dismissed any talk of a national security threat involving the now-former foreign affairs minister—”I don’t take this subject seriously.”

I might swear I saw Mr. Bernier in the House just moments before Question Period began an hour later. But when the Speaker called for oral questions, he was nowhere to be seen. Indeed, as noted in today’s column, a binder on his desk was quickly delivered by a Parliamentary page to Peter Van Loan. Seems Mr. Bernier has a bit of problem with keeping track of his belongings.

Or maybe that binder didn’t technically belong to him by then.

In any event, the Prime Minister’s off to Europe now. Others will be left in the next few days to explain, well, a lot.

“A lot of questions are still not answered,” Gilles Duceppe astutely observed, the BQ leader the first of the opposition leaders to emerge from the House foyer for comment.

“We have more questions then when we started,” offered Jack Layton, upping the ante a touch.

Canadian Press is now reporting that Mr. Bernier left a classified document at the apartment of one Julie Couillard. If we are to believe the Prime Minister, it matters not that Ms. Couillard was dating the minister at the time he left said documents in her possession. But it will surely now matter that Ms. Couillard was once tied uncomfortably close to reputed members of organized crime.

Indeed, if Mr. Bernier is to apologize to anyone in the coming days, it is surely to the government ministers who, over the last few weeks, loudly proclaimed this to be much ado about nothing. Time and again, the Liberals and Bloc rose and suggested to this government that this messy business might make for a bit of a national security concern. Time and again, they were derided as meddlesome busy-bodies, shamelessly peering into the private life of Mr. Bernier and smearing he and his ex by association. Admittedly, watching from the gallery, it seemed at times to be veering toward the tawdry.

Those on the left side of the House may now bask, if quietly, in some redemption. And Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and our federally recognized sovereigntists will no doubt point out in the days to come that now it is this government who has a responsibility to peer into Mr. Bernier’s private life and determine just how great of an error he has made here.

We’ll save the political obituary for later. Though there are no doubt a few lessons to be taken from Mr. Bernier’s rapid rise and spectacular flop, there is probably one lesson to take away immediately. Namely that every so often, the accusations of scandal and whispers of wrongdoing that are endemic to this place do indeed amount to something. Sometimes there is a there there.

***

Here, for the sake of closure, is the text of Mr. Bernier’s letter to the Prime Minister. Note that he places the time of his informing the PM of the breach as “late this afternoon”—seemingly after Mr. Harper’s statement at 1pm. Though conspiracy theorists might wonder why Mr. Bernier felt the need to tell the Prime Minister in writing the time at which he told him what he told him.

Prime Minister,

The Prime Minister’s second answer on Thursday included this meditation on patriotism. “Whenever this government announces something for the men and women of the forces, the Liberals always attack it. They always complain. Canadians know their attitude and that is why they elected a government to be for the Canadian Forces.”