环球邮报专栏：所谓上议院丑闻很无聊

做好事受惩罚，指控莱特贿赂没有道理

环球邮报Margaret Wente

我喜欢丑闻，那种谈起来让人津津乐道的丑闻。特别是有关贪婪、及说谎的政客、如果再牵涉到利益输送，爆炸性的内幕消息，就更精彩了。何况哈珀总理本来也不是大部份人喜欢的政客，所以尽管近来连连出现、让人震惊的大标题，要我承认那所谓的上议院丑闻根本不是什么大事，连我自己都感到失望。

第一个原因是，没人可以清楚说明(前总理幕僚长)莱特Nigel Wright到底做错了什么事。事实上，他是整件事里最值得同情的角色。面对一件乱七八糟的乱局，他尝试做正确的事，而且是自掏腰包。对所有人来说，包括纳税人来说，都没做错。他的报酬就是，那些被他帮助的人群起而攻之。连总理也不领情。现在居然要被皇家骑警以诈欺，破坏诚信，及贿赂接受调查。

综合好多名律师的意见，这些上星期公开的指控完全不合逻辑。他们认为绝无可能导致任何的控罪。因为莱特给上议员达菲Mike Duffy一张支票，根本不是为了给自己带来任何个人好处，他只是帮助达菲做法律要他做的事。国会的首席高级法律顾问Rob Walsh曾说：这既不是诈欺，亦不算违反诚信。

政府方面最早时说，莱特只不过是帮一个朋友，事实上，他根本不齿这个人(达菲)。对于莱特，从政是一种高尚的召唤。对于达菲，只是大家分好处。

没有人会真的相信，莱特在总理办公室策划了一场不可告人的阴谋。连我朋友中最痛恨哈珀总理的人，都不认为他做错什么事。即使他真的做错事，也是一件无心之失。

所以，如果没有罪行，那里来的掩饰？这裡就是一般百姓搞不清楚的地方。这件新闻整个就是由一大堆的指控及暗示构成，而整个说起来，根本不算一回事。所以，如果总理办公室的职员真的倚靠保守党上议员操纵各个委员会，有何不可？就像Walsh所指，这样的事一直都在发生。这就是政治。

这不是说，哈珀就真的被蒙在鼓里，或是他完全坦白。事实上，他讲的很多事都有疑问。回头想，我确信他一定希望将那些犯错的人拿去喂四周围的虎视耽耽的鲨鱼。但他们对于党有功劳，而且那些规条也实在非常含糊。所以他才下令手下处理这件事。没想到「问题」越来越大，到了难以控制的局面。而莱特为了做好人，做了好事。但到最终，他们全都要走，包括莱特。

哈珀在这件事的道德观很简单，他见到上议员行为不检，就要他们走路。而他们之间的过失都不是自己的错。他相信多数人与他想法一样，我则相信，他是对的。坏人得到惩罚，其他的再难去追讨后果。

莱特则学到一个教训，做好事必受惩罚。对于那些还想奉献自己为公服务的人，是一个警告。

以下是英文原文：

The Senate scandal’s out of legs

Margaret Wente

The Globe and Mail

I love a juicy scandal. What better way to fill a column than stories about greedy, lying politicians getting their comeuppance, and secret payoffs, and explosive revelations, and the decline of democracy as we know it? Besides, Stephen Harper is not most people’s favourite guy. So it pains me to report that despite the most recent breathless headlines, the Senate scandal has run out of legs.

The first problem is that nobody can figure out what Nigel Wright did wrong (apart from his decision to go into public service in the first place). In fact, he is the drama’s most sympathetic character. Confronted with a godawful mess, he tried to do the right thing, at his own expense, for all concerned, including the taxpayers. His reward was to be royally jerked around by the obnoxious character he was trying to help, repudiated and trash-talked by the Prime Minister (a man he’d been both close and loyal to for many years), and unaccountably accused of fraud, bribery and breach of trust by the RCMP.

According to a number of top lawyers, these accusations – they’re contained in what’s called an “Information to Obtain” document, released last week – make no sense. They’ll be amazed if they ever result in criminal charges. Mr. Wright wasn’t trying to get a personal benefit by writing a cheque to Mr. Duffy. He was trying to get Mr. Duffy to comply with the law. “The funds were given to Duffy to bring the Duffy expenses controversy to an end, like settling a lawsuit,” Rob Walsh, until recently the top legal adviser to Parliament, told the CBC. “This is not fraud, nor is it breach of trust.”

The government’s early spin was that Mr. Wright was just trying to help a friend. In fact, he loathed the man. To Mr. Wright, public service was a calling. To Mr. Duffy, it was an invitation to the trough.

No one can seriously believe that Mr. Wright engineered a vast criminal conspiracy from the PMO. Even my most Harper-loathing friends don’t think he did anything wrong, and that if he did, it was an innocent mistake.

So if there’s no crime, how can there be a cover-up? Here’s where ordinary people lose the thread. The story has been buried in a blizzard of minutiae and dark insinuations that don’t amount to much. So what if the PMO’s staff leaned on Conservative senators to manipulate the doings of various committees? As Mr. Walsh points out, it happens all the time. It’s called politics.

This is not to say that Mr. Harper had no idea what was going on, or that he’s been straight with us. Au contraire. His evolving accounts of events have been as snaky as a mountain road. In retrospect, I’m sure he wishes he’d fed the miscreants to the sharks from the start. But they’d been useful to the party, and the rules (as opposed to “the right thing to do”) were vague. So he authorized his staff to try to find a nonviolent solution. But then the problems got bigger, and things fell apart, and Mr. Wright tried to be a good guy. And then they all had to go, including Mr. Wright, whom Mr. Harper has now transformed into a villain.

Mr. Harper’s version of this morality play is very simple. He saw senators behaving badly, and now he’s gotten rid of them, and any funny stuff that happened in between is not his fault. He is betting that’s as deep as most people care to go, and I’m betting he’s right. The bad guys were punished, and all the rest is too hard to follow.

Mr. Wright, meantime, has learned that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s a cautionary tale for all of those who might wish to donate their skills to public life.