Kinsella On The Dion Dual Citizenship Flap

Checking in a day late and a dollar short, Warren Kinsella makes a series of blindingly obvious remarks re. the Stephane Dion Dual Citizenship controversy:

Maybe Canadians do, maybe they don't [care about the controversy]. What should matter to Canadians, now that the backroom viral campaigners have sullied the good name of a patriot, is enhanced media awareness. It would make for a better democracy, and a better Canada, among other things.

That enhanced media awareness could start with a question, on the record and right out in the open: Who had an obvious political interest in propagating the Stephane Dion "story?" Who?

So Kinsella is suggesting that Conservatives and, the horror! the horror!, maybe even the CPC itself are behind the attempted smear. How shocked I am.

Look, the most important thing about the Dion smear campaign was that it was met online and defanged. It is true that some media outlets, like the Toronto Star, published rash pieces suggesting Dion should give up his dual citizenship before all the facts were in (like the fact that John Turner was a also dual citizen). However, should the issue come up again during an election campaign these facts can be swiftly paraded about (due in large part to research work done in the progressive blogosphere) and the story will go nowhere.

And the important thing to ask is not whether it was a "viral" campaign, but whether it was an effective one. Well, that's actually difficult to say. The only up or down twitching in the polls that might, just might be related to the controversy is the continued Tory slide in Quebec. Did the incident raise suspicions among Quebeckers that their new found best buddies in the CPC might be just as anti-French as their Reform predecessors? Maybe...

PS. Shocked and appalled noises would look better coming from almost anybody but Kinsella, the master of political dark ops. Return to your pit, Warren!