Of kingpins and pawns

Somehow the reporting on Doug Finley's Twitter outburst has missed a rather remarkable point. So let's note that senior Cons seem to be following up with their new strategy of unveiling policy on Twitter by now using it to undermine their own legal position.

After all, Finley is personally facing charges arising out of the in-and-out scandal. And presumably, one of his defences would seem to have been that he personally wasn't responsible for the shifted costs and fabricated receipts forming part of the scheme - particularly since he didn't play a direct role in the transactions on the public record.

However, it wouldn't make any sense for Finley to say personally and publicly that Harper wasn't in a position to know about the decision-making process surrounding the in-and-out transactions unless he had enough personal involvement to know what did and didn't filter up to Harper. So Finley may have managed to substantially undermine his own defence in under 140 characters.

But does that make Finley's tweet credible in its exculpation of Harper? Let's revisit the Cons' governing philosophy per Paul Wells and John Geddes:

Someone who was there paraphrased Harper’s message to his ministers at his first cabinet meeting in 2006: “I am the kingpin. So whatever you do around me, you have to know that I am sacrosanct.” Harper was telling his ministers that they were expendable but that he wasn’t. If they had to go so that his credibility and his ability to get things done were protected, so be it.

So what implications might that philosophy have for Finley - a Harper loyalist since long before the Cons took power, who presumably had a role in building Harper's own internal message?

To the extent Finley believed his party's own hype, it would seem as likely as not that he'd be willing to throw himself under a modest-sized bus for the sake of protecting the kingpin. And that means there's reason to call the attempt to insulate Harper into question - even as it serves as substantial evidence against Finley himself.

Update: Leftdog has more.