OF WIMPS, GUTTERSNIPES, AND POLTROONS

When the Liberals should be pit bulls, they are wimps.

After Tory members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) refused to show up for a meeting, last week, to discuss the Humber Valley Paving (HVP) affair, Liberal MHA Jim Bennett told the Telegram “the whole thing seems fishy to him…”

Some condemnation!  

And Bennett wasn’t even in the legislature where the Speaker might have ruled any provocation out of order.

A good Opposition MHA would have whipped out his thesaurus of insults, insinuations, epithets and allegations. The public would know, in the colourful language of the best parliamentarians, that the guttersnipes heading the government are weak of character as well as at the knees.

Benjamin Disraeli was said to have been forced to withdraw, by the commons speaker, a remark declaring that half of the cabinet were "asses" – whereon he offered this riposte:

"Mr Speaker, I withdraw; half the cabinet are not asses."

Winston Churchill used the phrase "terminological inexactitude" to get around the rule preventing him from accusing another member of lying.

The great ones understood that sometimes the delivery of an ordinary message demands an extra-ordinary missile.

Bennett, I am sure, has no pretension to climbing the oratorical heights of Churchill or Disraeli. And he shouldn’t.

Like Dwight Ball and his shy platoon, he is content to be an undertaker for a government moribund. 

But the undertaker, not the corpse, is the one expected to exhibit signs of life, for gosh sake!

Had Bennett called the Tory PAC Members cowards, quislings, and schemers, at least he would have only been stating what the public already knows.

Bennett got noticed having lucked in with a couple of slow news days..

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Related to this story:

WILL DWIGHT BALL PLEASE STAND UP

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Former Tory MHA, John Carter used to maintain a special book containing a plethora of perfect words just in case such an opportunity, like Ray Hunter presented, arose.

Words like poltroons, buffoon, craven, and yellow-belly would have been uttered with mere reflex.

Carter is long gone from the Legislature. But inside or outside the House there is not a single MHA who can match even that denizen of the Tory backbench. 

Carter would never let Liberal MHAs forget their reputation for nepotism and cronyism; one they earned under Smallwood.

Now the shoe is on the other foot; except Bennett would have you think the PAC Meeting is a church social, not an inquiry into possible corruption, on a multi-million dollar scale.

Former Minister Nick McGrath’s decision cost the public millions.  It left a large number of HVP sub-contractors high and dry.

In the world of opposition parties, abuse of power and cronyism justifies a specially selected lexicon; none of those words would include benign.

“They would prefer, I think, to keep a cloak of secrecy on it, and take the political fallout of not looking under that rock, so to speak” added Bennett. 

Yawn! Yawn!

Lucky for Bennett he wasn’t speaking with a St. Barbe fisherman who would have had him understand equivocation with a good smack from a rotten sculpin.  

There is nothing “fishy” about what the Tories are up to. It stinks. What is there to equivocate about?

And you can bet your booties the decision to rob the PAC of a quorum was not made by Ray Hunter or any of the Tories on the Committee, either.  The Constable Premier can talk chapter and verse about the law regarding driving and talking on your cell phone. But with an election looming itty bitty issues, like government corruption, are not on his police radar.

Now, John Carter would have called the tory PAC members scurrilous, shameful, arrogant, and unscrupulous. He would have made sure they paid dearly for their truancy.

Perhaps, the strangest part about Bennett’s tepid comments is that they still elicited the ire of Ray Hunter and the Premier, anyway.

“I don’t know where Mr. Bennett is coming from with this bullshit he gets on with” the Telegram quoted the Member.  “You might get one (Tory MHA) to say, ‘Yes I can,’ and then the next day, call you and say, ‘Uncle Joe just died, I’ve got a funeral.’ Or, ‘No b’y, I just got an invitation to a garden party, and there’s going to be 300 people there.’”

We actually elect people who say these things!

And how does the ‘cop from flop’ react to Jim Bennett’s limp explosion?

“A low blow” …“disgusting”, roared Davis; invoking Hunter’s health condition, which even Ray Hunter didn’t do.

The invective must have sent McLeod seeking the safety of his Twitter feed.

John Carter probably would have taunted the Premier as an insolent and impertinent blatherskite for the effort.

He would have looked as silly as the Telegram reportage made him sound.

Carter’s book may be old now, but it’s not out of date. My guess is that he is so poisoned with the Tories he’s be happy to give Jim Bennett his coveted book.

Except it would be wasted on someone so wimpy.