[Tinordi]

This is seriously the only article you need to read on this issue:

http://o.canada.com/news/no-one-gets...pense-debacle/

The strategy from Trudeau’s camp, and from Liberal Tweegionaires, has been to cast this story as further evidence of the Harper government’s fundamental meanness, and an attack on veterans. But here’s the thing: Even disgraced brigadier-general Dan Menard’s move to the UAE, according to CP’s Brewster, cost under $40,000. And lower-echelon military families have been involved in a protracted fight with DND over repayment of costs they incurred in their own moves, when their homes were sold in depressed markets. How could an overseas shift, logically, be less costly for taxpayers than one within Ottawa? And is there one standard for the brass and another for the ordinary soldier?

These are fair questions. They and more like them should be expected by Trudeau and his team, for this reason: They have held themselves up as reformers, who intend to play the game differently, with greater moral fibre than their opponents. It’s the very same claim Preston Manning and Reform began making in the late 1980s – yet here we are. It’s not good enough, therefore, for Leslie to say he followed all the rules (and there is no evidence at all to the contrary, that I have seen.) That’s a particularly weak argument for accepting an entitlement that most reasonable people would find overly generous, coming from a would-be crusader for accountability.

That said, Nicholson and the Conservatives aren’t anything close to blameless in this debacle. The defence minister’s office claims the story, broken Saturday by CTV, emerged from an access to information request. Many suspect it was leaked, to throw a wrench in the works at this week’s Liberal convention in Montreal, where Leslie is to speak. Either way, the dignified response from a minister of the Crown would have been to express concern, say it’s being looked into, then clam up. That also would have been politically smart.

But such subtlety is beyond the ken of our Conservatives. Nicholson lunged at the story like a Schnauzer for a scrap of meat, tarring the general publicly, sight unseen, and rendering any subsequent investigation meaningless. This left the New Democrats to take up a function traditionally performed by the media: Coming down from the hills after the battle to shoot the wounded. Senior members of Team Orange, who also are about doing politics differently, spent the weekend with a six-gun in each hand, blasting Liberals for being entitled and Conservatives for being nasty, with ill-concealed glee. Are they aware, all these partisans, how very similar they look from beyond the magic bubble?