Even more shocking

Unaccountable partisan hacks proclaim their entitlement to continue unaccountable partisan hackery on your dime:

Senators have given themselves the right to pepper the country with mailings attacking opposition parties as long as they refrain from attacking each other, QMI Agency has learned.
...
“This is insane," NDP MP Peter Stoffer said. “They are unaccountable and unelected and they can use taxpayers dollars to attack … (NDP Leader) Jack Layton?”

The House of Commons stopped MPs last spring from sending highly partisan “garbage” to other MPs’ ridings and the Senate should do the same, Stoffer urged.
...
The Conservative-dominated Senate committee clarified the rules around mailings after receiving complaints Tory senators Bob Runciman and Don Plett had sent newsletters to Liberal ridings in their home province attacking the party for being soft on crime.

Now, it's somewhat surprising that Stephen Harper's patronage-laden majority bothered to hold the vote rather than simply daring anybody to stop them. But can there be a more definitive statement that the Cons are determined to abuse their publicly-funded sinecures in the Senate as thoroughly as possible?

In need of abolition

There's been plenty of talk about the yesterday's showdown between NDP MP Peter Stoffer and Con Senator Mike Duffy over Senate expenses. But while many people have noticed the contrast between Stoffer's calm demeanour and Duffy's sputtering rage, I'm not sure anybody has pointed out what looks to me to be the most glaring problem with Duffy's attacks on Stoffer.

While Duffy did indeed get angrier and angrier over the course of the appearance, there's little indication that his attacks on Stoffer were a matter of going too far personally in a single outburst. Duffy first went to the "fakers" line at a point when nobody else was speaking in a way that could even be argued to have set him off - and repeated it several times intertwined with other Con talking points thoroughout the interview. Which suggests to me that the problem isn't Duffy going off message, but that he's being given more and more inflammatory messages to deliver.

Now, there's some obvious logic as to why the Cons might want to set up a strategy where their unelected, unaccountable, unfireable Senate hacks are the ones sent out to deliver the most personal attacks they can. Anytime an MP or candidate who faces the voters is the one to be associated with such a message or to show unbridled anger in public, they face the danger of a backlash at the polls.

But with Duffy and his ilk put in front of the cameras, there's no similar risk of direct consequences. Instead, the Cons can claim some degree of deniability if comments are construed as being offensive. And if any stunt isn't immediately met with public outcry, then their elected officials can move in and start repeating and reinforcing it.

In effect, then, the Cons seem to have turned Duffy into a Canadian version of a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck: somebody responsible for pushing the boundaries of acceptable debate, road-testing extreme and personal messages with no electoral repercussions. And the only obvious differences are ones where the Cons' version looks even worse: while Limbaugh and Beck are at least nominally in control of their own message and financially affected by their choices, Duffy is proud to take orders directly from Stephen Harper and money from the Canadian public.

In other words, yesterday's appearance is probably best seen less as a problem with Duffy alone, and more as yet another turning point where the Cons have abused public institutions for their partisan ends. And the fact that the Senate is ripe for such misuse offers up an even more compelling argument for abolition than the waste and patronage that Duffy was so eager to deflect from in the first place.

Update: For those who haven't seen it yet, Glen Pearson's take is worth a read.

On practical suggestions

Of course, in addition to managing images to turn the Cons' misuse of government resources for partisan gain into a criticism that sticks, it also can't hurt for the opposition parties to bring up some policy suggestions to ensure that similar problems don't pop up in the future. And fortunately, the NDP is on the case.

On non-stories

It's probably true that "MP Peter Stoffer at odds with mischaracterization of leader's position" wouldn't have quite the same ring to it. But that doesn't mean there's any excuse for this.

And it's worth wondering just how many enterprising questioners are calling out the one leader who actually has rejected suggestions before hearing them.

Testing

In comments at We Move to Canada, Sarah O provides Peter Stoffer's explanation for his vote on C-484, essentially reflecting a personal policy of encouraging as many private member's bills as possible to reach the committee stage even if he's opposed in substance.

While that explanation certainly isn't as damaging as support for the bill in substance, it's still hard to see any reasonable justification for prioritizing form over content to that great an extent - particularly when it would seem to make it less likely that more positive bills will actually get dealt with in committee. And given that the Libs aren't doing all that much else at the moment, can it be long before they introduce a Let's Lock Up Peter Stoffer and Throw Away the Key Act to challenge the strength of Stoffer's convictions?