[Dion]

One thing is certain; unexplained or inappropriate absences are extremely damaging in politics, both to the politician and his or her party.

Ex-premier Ed Stelmach did the Conservatives a world of harm in the summer of 2010, when he and his wife went on a European trip that she’d won in a charity auction.

They left just as the Medicine Hat area was suffering a disastrous flood. People were furious with him. Wildrose now holds that riding.

One August day in 1987, then Premier Don Getty’s spokesman said he was “working out of the office” just as an Alberta investment company called the Principal Group was collapsing, obliterating the savings of hundreds of Albertans.

In fact, Getty was golfing. The Edmonton Journal snapped a photo to prove it. His reputation never quite recovered. That happened long before cellphones and social media existed.

Now, Redford’s latest mystery trip will make many PCs very uncomfortable.

She’s gone — long gone, apparently — but not nearly as forgotten as they want her to be.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion...753/story.html