Ottawa feels a lot like Hollywood these days. At any moment now a crew from TMZ or Entertainment Tonight will be lurking on Sparks Street hoping to catch a glimpse or pick up a tidbit on Rahimelena. You know them - Rahim Jaffer and Helena Guergis, the once glamorous political power couple who flamed out after playing with matches and dousing themselves in gasoline.
Frankly, I am aghast that none of the celebrity magazines like People, US Weekly, Hello and even that Pulitzer Prize contender, The National Enquirer, don't yet have them on their covers. In due course I guess. Now with reports of private eyes and further drug allegations the story will must kick up to the cover of gossip rags.
Stephen Harper, thankfully not being Silvio Berlusconi, has wisely decided not to make himself a key actor in this made-for-TV mess. He has punted the Rahimelena saga to the Dudley Do-Right Gang at the RCMP - where it probably belongs.
Michael Ignatieff, who bares a striking resemblance to Jack McCoy, the district attorney on Law & Order, is all to happy to throw allegations around like jello hoping that one sticks. Iggy seems to have forgotten that old Jean Chretien mantra: "If you throw mud you lose ground." Never mind though, for Iggy joining the parade and teeing off on Rahimelena means no one is paying attention to his woes.
I suppose the current Hollywood-like obsession with the Rahimelena train wreck provides for some different titillation - who can forget the busty hookers - in this sleepy city on the Rideau. Maybe one day soon we will get past this all too common story of humans succumbing to their failings, albeit in a spectacular fashion, and return to the normal hum-drum stuff like debates about the economy. Clearly, though, a city starved for excitement is on a bender of Rahimelena proportions.
