Okay... Not sure if I got this correct... All the facts, so to speak... Please correct me if I'm wrong:
- Jaffer stopped for apparently driving intoxicated, speeding (very much above posted speed), and what was indicated as possession of Cocaine...
- It was in the riding of his wife - Helen of Tory...
- The judge publicly admits, with a smile, "you got off easy"...
- Judge was supposedly appointed by Federal Conservative Justice Minister, when he was Provincial Conservative Attorney General...
- People of the same "political feather" tend to flock together, and in a small rural riding there is sure to be some "flocking" going on...
Curious... Flocking curious if you ask me... Coin-ki-dink city...
I'm assuming the Federal Conservatives are full of $h!t when they pay lip service to being "tough on crime" (you know, maintaining conservative "appearances" and all... keeping the "base" happy, while scaring the $h!t out of average Canadians in an environment of rapidly declining crime rates).
This flocking stinks... Dirty, dirty, dirty...
6 comments:
1. The decision to drop the charges against Jaffer, except the dangerous driving charge, was made by the Crown counsel, who (as a matter of interest) is with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, not the federal Department of Justice.
2. The Judge didn't make that decision, and had no say in it. Don't believe me? Check out this post from one of your fellow Libloggers - one who probably has a lot more knowledge of this sort of thing than you or me, judging from his bio.
3. I stand to be proven wrong, but the fine that Jaffer received is probably not out of line for similar cases of dangerous driving, particularly when nobody was hurt as a result, and especially if this was Jaffer's first offence.
Anyone who has been around politics as long as we have knows the importance of appearances... Your argument isn't with me anymore my friend... It's with the Canadian populace, the media, and your party's holier-than-thou attitude about crime...
That's the way the cookie crumbles...
I do not like it at all, however
the crown attorney made the deal, not the judge.
Why are you not blaming McGuinty?
I assume that your point is that the Conservatives want to bring in minimum sentances for speeding? I haven't seen that and I doubt it. However, dream on.
Anyone who has been around politics as long as we have knows the importance of appearances...
Perhaps, to an extent. But your specific post related to the judge involved, and I was addressing that issue.
As the Canadian Alliance learned to its dismay, attacking the judiciary is, in almost every case, a very poor strategy for a political party. (Even in cases where the public thinks that a judge's verdict, for example, is dead wrong, the appetite for going after the judge him- or herself personally is limited, to say the least.) So I'm pretty comfortable in my assumption that the public-at-large isn't going to think that the fix was in between the judge and Jaffer.
If you want to rely on the "appearances" you make much of in your original post, be my guest - but I don't think even the federal Lib caucus is going to follow you there, especially when some of your more knowledgable fellow Libloggers (like the one I linked to) clearly say otherwise.
Jason - I'm a HUGE fan of the courts/judiciary. Lot of lawyers in the family too. I actually believe the courts are better defenders of the constitution than any humanly elected reps are. That is my point exactly - to highlight the hypocrisy of the Conservatives, in a somewhat playful manner... Expressing the "moral outrage" these neanderthalic "thinkers" have expressed in the past...
Point made.
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