No end to the digging

Well, let me guess: we'll be hearing a lot from the national media about former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and a former client of his.

Why? Hell, no good reason except, I suspect, the damage it could do to the current government. And, because the Opposition parties want it that way.

None of this is new.

Mulroney's arse hadn't cleared the threshold at 24 Sussex in 1993 when the media was on about everything but how he stole the silverware.

With this, it seems the old statement all Tories aren't necessarily haters, but all haters are Tories doesn't really wash.

Whoever said that hasn't taken a long, lingering look at elements of the Ottawa media.

This was again illustrated this year, when the same Mulroney reiterated the unsavory aspects of another former prime minister's considerably less than patriotic actions during the Second World War. Given the reaction from media mavens, however, one would be forgiven if one got the impression Mulroney himself were the wartime miscreant, not merely the belated messenger.

There's the same lack of media excitement over the connection between another former prime minister and the troubled Khadr family.

Whatever Mulroney's relationship with a suspicious client, Karlheinz Schreiber, or a former's business relationship with a hotel chain or another former's tax reduction measures for his shipping company... they can't be seen as having possibly cost Canadian or Allied lives. They were business things, not to do with politics - old or new.

On major matters, messages are meeting a disconnect. Things aren't going to get any better with the cessation of publication of the Western Standard magazine edition.

The Western Standard - more Standard than Western after January 23, 2006 - has been cutting edge. Maybe a bit too Western Canadian, maybe too pro-Israeli, but certainly a fresh look at our national realities. It was the only national publication with the courage to show readers what the Mohammed cartoons were all about. It discussed issues like the nutty academic left, questions that remain in the Arar matter, First Nations’ leadership, environmentalists, the Khadr case, and even Prime Minister Harper's newfound centre path.

Regardless of all that, it's off the racks.

A big problem, of course, was advertising. Some companies were probably wary of buying ads with a magazine at variance with the federal Liberals, who many expect to be back in power sometime in the future - even if Harper gets his majority, or even two.

Being a conservative publication, it wasn't likely to apply for government subsidization liberal and leftist ones would immediately seek by rote.

Advertising follows circulation, a problem with a conservative or blue liberal readership. Circulation's hard to prove without subscription lists. Such readers don't reach into our pockets as much or as quickly as we should. I, for example, was fortunate enough to be able to borrow my copies (for those snarky readers, yes, I do see the connection).

With no Western Standard, the revived and dusted off Mulroney matter will be held before our glazed-over eyes ‘til we tire of it. That, and yet another attempt to get folks riled over Afghan terrorist treatment: a non starter we can't do anything about because Afghanistan is a sovereign state (such as it is), and nobody really cares about terrorists' creature comforts - except, of course, the Canadian opposition.

Indeed, maybe the terrorist detainees could come to Canada and be billeted at Jack Layton's and Stephane Dion's places. Just in time for Christmas. If their guests go on the lam, well, perhaps these two sensitive gents could go back to Afghanistan as replacements.

Hmmm.