Oh, Canada :-(

I stumbled onto this Canadian mess thanks to Glenn Reynolds @ Instapundit, who has more info about the scandal than I could possibly link to. It's a government scandal that has pitted a whole political party against the blogosphere. Guess who's winning.

Now governments, as a rule, can declare documents and testimony as classified or senitive, especially if they are deemed by the powers that be as damaging to national security and what. Many a conspiracy theory is based on lack of evidence due to restricted documents. For some, the less evidence you have, the more certain they are of the conspiracy. JFK, Jimmy Hoffa, and MLK assassinations are some examples. They were killed by dissatisfied secret organization within the government. There are even a few concerning 9/11. Either the Israelis did it to get the US to go to war in the middle East, or the US did it to either:

a) help bring more government investment to the military industrial complex (MacDonald Douglas and the like),

b) grab more oil from the region and help VP Cheney's pals at Haliburton (in which case GW should be impeached on his miserable failure to snag the oil, thus leading to $2.47 per gal. price of unleaded),

or

c) so Bush would be able to take out Saddam, revenge for plotting to take out his father, Bush the first.

The anthrax incidents were planned and executed by the Bush administration. Then there are the WMD's, or the lack there of. Bush lied of coarse, defining "lie" as a statement made KNOWING that it is false. But you wonder, if the US could pull of an anthrax attack in this country, and knowing that Saddam had no WMD's, couldn't Bush have planted a few WMD's and /or anthrax in Iraq to offer proof that he was right all along... SUCKERS!

Sorry, I was having fun at the expense of the paranoid. Anyway, can you imagine if the US government tried to put a gag on important info concerning Watergate. Oh wait, they did. BUT, processes were in place that allowed the free press enough access to get to the truth. In Canada, the state controls the press and its content, therefore has the potential to squelch information that would be harmful to those in charge. In the US, it's usually the other way around. The media will go out of their way to find and present info damaging to those in power, even if the information is taken out of context, does not amount to criminal behavior, or can't be verified (that's a nice way of saying they're fakes, Dan). Faulty sib's or children are a favorite: Patty Billygate (Carter), Davis-gate (Reagan), Neilgate (G. H. W. Bush), Rodgergate (Clinton), Jeanna-gate (G. W.). Anyway, thought the press tends to favor one party or candidate over another, or sometimes ignores things or gets it wrong, I'm damned glad we have the transparency of power (mostly) coupled with a free press in the United States.