Helena Guergis has every right to speak her mind and defend herself against allegations levied in the court of public of opinion and elsewhere. However, to cast herself now as some innocent, naïve victim of a bully-boy Prime Minister is both absurd and laughable. The only person she has to blame for the mess she is in is herself and potentially her husband, but no one else. Stephen Harper gave her lots of opportunities and she blew them all.
As Globe TV critic John Doyle well-described yesterday, her performance in her interview with Peter Mansbridge was awful. It was another show by Helena demonstrating how she was wronged. The fact that some in the opposition and media have now jumped onto her tale of misery has nothing to do with the facts of the case and everything to with their own interests, not hers.
Guergis, the self-styled victim, continues to change her story. Originally she told Mansbridge she was reasonably certain that her husband wasn't using her office and parliamentary e-mail for business. Yesterday she was singing a different tune and suggested he might have but that wasn't really a big deal. All other allegations aside, if she doesn't understand that is a serious issue then maybe she should have never been in cabinet to start. The average person quickly gets that a man who is in the business of assisting people find government money and is doing that from a cabinet minister's office while using an e-mail address baring the minister's parliamentary coordinates has, at a minimum, an unfair competitive advantage and at a maximum might be in contravention of numerous statutes. Never mind the fact this Conservative government was elected on an agenda of accountability.
No big deal Helena? Tell that to the next bartender who lets a drunk patron drive home. Just like that server, you have liabilities here. You are not in the business of potentially putting your husband's interests first and then the public after. Ignorance, no matter in what version of your story it appears, is not a defence.
The more Helena Guergis defends herself the clearer it becomes the Prime Minister made the right decision. It is just too bad we have to live through another national episode of Guergis self-indulgence.