Saturday, November 05, 2011

Unethical standards

Yes, Geoff Leo's debunking of Bill Hutchinson's supposed "mainstreeting" is well worth a view. But I'd think the story deserves to be taken somewhat more seriously than it has been so far.

After all, it's hard to see Hutchinson's setup as anything but a deliberate attempt to mislead the media and the general public in the waning days of an election campaign. And that complete contempt for even the slightest bit of honesty in politics is paired with a remarkable degree of arrogance in thinking both that Leo wouldn't see through the strange interactions, and that nobody would recognize obvious Sask Party plants on camera.

What's more, it's not as if Hutchinson can be written off as a single rogue candidate. In fact, he's only the second Regina Sask Party MLA and cabinet minister found in the past few days to have been misleading rather important actors in Saskatchewan's political system in areas where the deception is both utterly gratuitous and certain to be caught.

And all this at a time when the Sask Party is spending massive amounts of money on ads accusing Dwain Lingenfelter of being "unethical" for far less. Which may signal part of the gap which the NDP needs to make up against its right-wing competitors - both in pushing back when challenged, and building outrage about Sask Party misdeeds.

Of course, the problem with Hutchinson and Tell isn't so much that they in fact got caught, but that Brad Wall and his party seem to operate on the assumption that their standard for honesty is entirely acceptable. And if the Sask Party sees grounds for promotion in members deceiving the public in areas so trivial and easily debunked, then there's plenty of reason to worry about what else is being lied about where it really matters.

Update: On a not-entirely-unrelated note, Paul Krugman notes the difference between how left-wing and right-wing parties treat hypocrisy.

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