What does being rich have to do with Emerson's crossing being ok?

This is just a short entry, but it is in regards to one of the defences of Emerson being bought with a Cabinet seat. I have seen the idea dismissed on the grounds that Emerson is a wealthy man and is getting less than if he stayed in the private sector. Well, the same was true of Belinda Stronach, even more so when you get right down to it, yet that did not stop Conservatives from claiming she was bought with the power of a Cabinet position, indeed that she was motivated solely by her "lust for power". So anyone that thinks Emerson's personal wealth is any sort of defence for his being bought by POWER (which a Cabinet position is, never doubt it) by a PM willing to offer POWER to increase his minority position is clearly unable to understand this basic reality. Money and power are not the same thing, even though they are closely related to each other. Emerson was all about his own appetite for power being his motivation for running for Parliament, not principles, not political affiliations/beliefs, but his desire/lust for power. He may well have noble intentions for using that power, but it still does not change the underlying fact he was clearly motivated by power rather than he was by any principle, and that is not considered ethical/principled for any Parliamentarian of any party by most people in this country.

I know I have been focusing on this and Fortier a lot, but I really do find both of these quite offensive on grounds of ethics, which I happen to believe are important to try and follow. I think Andrew Coyne makes a very good point in this article regarding how for so many this is being completely overlooked. If there was any sense of a point of principle for Emerson I would not be being so harsh towards his decision, even given the timing although that I would have still been offended by. The problem is there are no principled reasons for this act, solely an unwillingness to be outside of Cabinet by Emerson, and the recognition of same by Harper who had no problem offering him Cabinet to cross. Fortier though is far worse ethically in my view, and his is the appointment that most troubles me in all of this as I have noted before. The one thing this matter has helped me with is to figure out which online Conservatives actually believe in their principles and which ones don't care so long as it is their guy doing it and not their opponents. The former I respect, the latter are no better than the Liberal partisans that could defend anything Martin/Liberals did, in other words mindless party partisan hacks/propagandists.

Incidentally, I have been seeing some whining from some Conservatives about how unfair it is of the media to be focusing on them like this, especially not when there are Liberal scandals to be reporting on in their opinion. One slight problem though, the CPC is the government now, not the Liberals, and therefore it is entirely appropriate for the CPC to be getting the most scrutiny, especially in their first decisions as a new government. Trying to blame the last week on the "liberal media out to get Harper/Conservatives" looks and sounds like childish deflection from the missteps of your leader and trying to avoid his personal responsibility for this mess, both in regards to decisions and in terms of having any kind of media strategy to sell these decisions to the general public since anyone should have been able to tell these would be controversial decisions for Harper to have been making. There is no "liberal" media in this country let alone a "Liberal" one, there is no solid evidence to support such a contention. Indeed, what studies have been done in the last two elections show that the Conservatives have not been receiving unfair/slanted/biased coverage despite the repeated contentions to the contrary by Conservatives. This tactic may have worked well in America for conservatives, but it is not working so well up here. Indeed, all it has done so far outside of the already convinced is make Conservatives advocating this notion sound like conspiracy theorists and slightly paranoid. Not exactly the thing to help Canadians feel the CPC is ready for prime time and has good judgment and understanding of the Canadian society/environment.