Proudly showing weakness

It isn't often that I manage to overestimate the good sense of the Cons. But even I would have taken Stockwell Day to have enough political instinct to avoid increased attention to his pitiful response to the U.S. in the wake of the Arar inquiry report, rather than looking for new opportunities to confirm his weak excuse for action:

Critics have asked the government to issue a formal complaint to the U.S. for the deportation. But Day told CTV's Question Period on Sunday that he wrote to U.S. officials soon after the report's release, asking them to clear Arar's name.

"It was a pretty clear letter. It was saying that Justice O'Connor had found that there had been inaccurate information passed on," said Day. "And that following the inaccurate information, there had been accurate information and that we had, within 24 hours of seeing the report, removed all the so-called 'look-outs' on our security systems about Mr. Arar and his family, who went through this very unfortunate time.

"I also shared in that letter with (Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff) that as we had taken that particular step, I would sure appreciate if they would do the same."

One would think the Cons would be willing to point out the failures of the U.S. government where they're intricately linked to the Lib regime's failure to have any idea what was going on during its watch. But instead, the Cons have apparently concluded that they'd rather discuss their feeble suggestions to the U.S. regarding current security lists than the possibility of a legitimate complaint. Which only highlights the lengths the Cons seem willing to go to in order to curry Bush's favour - and the complete abandonment of Canadian interests in that process.

Not that the Lib response is at all credible given their utter failure to defend Arar's rights at the time. But Day's willingness to try to address the Arar fiasco with nothing more than a single letter oriented toward papering over the U.S.' contribution to Arar's torture suggests strongly that the Cons will be even weaker if similar situations arise in the future.