Conrad Black: The Governor General is a weasel

Or words to that effect.  Conrad Black is mightily pissed at the way he was treated by the Order of Canada bureaucrats and the Governor General in particular:

... It had been obvious for two years that the honours and awards staff that administers these matters were rabid in their ambition to remove me, and I publicly referred to their ambitions in this regard as “orgasmic.” 

... I quickly realized that these prancing figurines in the governor general’s entourage who manipulate this honours system did not wish to be confused by the facts.

... I in fact resigned, but gave David Johnston the opportunity to do the right thing — not accept the advice to withdraw my honours, which he was free to do — if he wished. I correctly predicted that the bobble-headed worthies of the official snobocracy called the Advisory Board of the Order of Canada would nod the herald chancellor’s sanctimonious misinformation on to Johnston.

... Government House issued a statement that was in fact, false, as I had already resigned; presumably to inflict as much irritation and affected consequentiality as possible. (The Privy Council issue, of which I had no notice whatever, was at least consistent, and was so insultingly communicated by Johnston’s own email, and in the name of the prime minister, it was almost piquant.) [Question: Why is the GG sending email in the name of the PM?  The GG doesn't work for the PM, does he?]

... Perhaps the most eloquent of the very large number of [supportive] messages I have received was signed “Tim”: “F–k ’em.” Good thought, Tim ...

 Excellent column, Conrad!

Dear Conrad - please don't encourage the airhead

Conrad Black thinks Justin's senate gambit is a great idea:

Justin Trudeau took a promising step this week when he severed his party’s senators from the Liberal caucus ...

... That ambition for the triple-E Senate would require rewriting the Constitution, which is simply not possible in Canada.

What bugs me about most Senate reform discussion is that it always seems to begin with the assumption that the Constitution is closed or that to "open" it would be to risk having the country fall apart (or something). Well, it isn't closed, it has always been open for amendment - there are amending formulas.

It obviously wouldn't be easy, but if our nation's leadership and brain-trust are serious about Senate reform then there should be a serious, grown-up effort made to formally change (or abolish) it. All serious proposals should be on the table for discussion and debate with a view to formally amending the constitution. All else is mickey-mouse tinkering and political grand-standing.

On the other hand it's entirely possible that the current wave of enthusiasm for Senate reform is a just passing fad stoked by the Media Party and opposition opportunism over apparent financial malfeasance by certain Conservative senators.

The T-Star's shakedown targets

Last month The Toronto Star's loopy chairman wrote to 70 Toronto "elites"  in an attempt to intimidate them into denouncing Mayor Rob Ford (see Conrad Black's column).  Today, The (loopy) Star published a list of responders (and non-responders) along with their comments.  Many predictably went along with the Star's idiocy and dumped all over Ford as requested.  But many others either didn't respond at all or told the Star to drop dead.  Peter Kent's reply stands out (my bold):

WHENEVER A REPORTER FOR THE TORONTO STAR MIGHT WISH TO ASK FOR MY THOUGHTS ON AN ISSUE OF THE DAY, I STAND READY TO RESPOND.

HOWEVER, AND DESPITE YOUR “EXTENDED DEADLINE” I WILL NOT ANSWER THE DEMANDS IN YOUR LETTER OF DECEMBER 16TH, 2013, WHICH I CONSIDER TO BE A CRUDELY CRAFTED, VEILED THREAT THAT I (AND OTHERS) ENDORSE AN EDITORIAL COLUMN WRITTEN BY TORSTAR CHAIR JOHN HONDERICH . . . OR FACE CONSEQUENCES IN YOUR EVENTUAL STORY.

YOUR LETTER IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHAT MIGHT BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CRUSADE JOURNALISM; A NEWSPAPER'S ATTEMPT TO IMPOSE ITS EDITORIAL WILL FAR BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF ACCEPTABLE JOURNALISTIC PRACTICE.

MR. HONDERICH IS CERTAINLY ENTITLED TO HIS OPINION.

I WILL NOT BE BULLIED INTO COMMENTING ON THAT OPINION.

YOUR MANNER OF NEWS-GATHERING IS, I BELIEVE, AN UNFORTUNATE EXAMPLE OF THE DECLINE OF A CRAFT I ONCE PROUDLY PRACTISED.

[via Blue Like You]

Senate "scandal" - much ado about not much

Conrad Black on the Duffy/ Wright affair:

- This week’s by-election results ...  suggest that voters are not too much concerned ...

- The PM’s chief of staff advanced his own money that was cycled on a fast track to the national treasury. It was the reverse of embezzlement. ...

- there is something very peculiar about a system that, as in the Duffy case, allows an RCMP corporal to publish such an inflammatory series of allegations against a distinguished figure of the private and public sector such as Nigel Wright. ...

- especially unbecoming, and has failed to impress anyone an all political sides, has been the swift evolution of Harper’s and Gerstein’s and others Conservatives’ references to Nigel Wright [throwing him under the bus]  ...

- overall, this remains pretty thin gruel as a scandal. ...

 Ezra Levant has similar thoughts:

Conrad Black's defence of Mayor Rob Ford

The salvation of Ford: Conrad Black on why Rob Ford can win again

... nothing has come to light that disqualifies him from fulfilling the mandate his electors gave him, and I do not believe that the City Council has any legal capacity to redefine the powers of the mayor ...

... Mayor Ford’s detractors should realize that instead of hounding him from office, they have probably, by their bestial self-righteous excess and implicit mockery of a large echelon of the population that identifies with the mayor, made him more popular than ever. They have mocked human foibles a great many voters share, without shame, if not proudly. ... The law of unintended consequences asserts itself again, and it will be interesting to see whom it strikes.

Conrad at his best. Love it!  Though I'd say that in addition to that "implicit mockery" there was a lot of explicit mockery and insult of Ford voters by many including Post columnists J Kay and A. Coyne.

See also, Peter Foster's: Unravelling the Fordian Knot

Why the Post publishes Conrad Black

Jonathan Kay explains.  The print version included a large type eye-catcher box that read:

I run an op-ed page, not a church newsletter.  My contributors have included sex-trade workers, drug addicts and conspiracy theorists.

I'm sure Conrad will appreciate the association. :D

No grovelling for Conrad

Conrad Black gave a lengthy presentencing statement to the Federal Court judge in Chicago, yesterday.  Maintaining his innocence as always, there was no insincere grovelling for mercy:

"... I believe in the confession and repentance of misconduct and in the punishment of crime. I don't believe in false or opportunistic confessions...."

I also liked his quotes from Kipling, especially the part he addressed to the prosecutors and the media.

A great performance.  Best of luck, Conrad.

Bad news for Conrad

The bad news (see also):

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday cleared the way for resentencing former media baron Conrad Black next month in Chicago for fraud and obstruction of justice after rejecting his appeal.

A U.S. appeals court in October upheld Lord Black’s 2007 conviction on one fraud count and for obstructing justice while it overturned two other fraud convictions.

... Lord Black’s resentencing is scheduled June 24 before a federal judge in Chicago. Lord Black, 66, has been free on bail since July after serving nearly 2-1/2 years of his original 6-1/2-year prison term.

Sorry to hear it but given that two of his convictions were overturned maybe it'll be a reduced sentence like, say, time served.

Conrad is outta the slammer!

Restarting on a high note, Conrad Black is granted bail!

Some good news for Conrad Black

From CTV News:

... The important development related to [Black's] chances of winning his appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court and it came from a surprising source. Falling just short of waving a white surrender flag, the same United State Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois that launched Black's prosecution signalled its shaken belief that his fraud convictions might be vacated. ...

... The alarm bell has been sounded in prosecutors' offices across America that the honest services fraud statute may be on life support. ...

... If the fraud statute is ruled to be unconstitutional, Black's remaining three fraud counts will invariably fall. And what of the obstruction of justice charge that would remain? The court might be persuaded that if it isn't vacated, Conrad Black will be left with a single conviction for a crime committed in another country in relation to a set of circumstances that were determined by the court to be non-criminal. The absurdity of that logic leading to a dubious conviction could possibly lead the Supreme Court to vacate the charge of obstruction of justice as well.

[Via Mark Steyn at 'the corner']

Chretien’s OM - a distinct flavour of hypocrisy

In today’s editorial the National Post ponders whether Jean Chrétien deserves his recent appointment by Queen Elizabeth to the Order of Merit, and makes this excellent point:

... perhaps one cannot quarrel too loudly with his appointment to the Order of Merit. But if one happened to be Lord Black of Crossharbour ... one might be sorely tempted to try. Hypocrisy played a large role in Mr. Chretien's particular genius, so should anyone be surprised that there is a certain distinct flavour of it haunting what may be the supreme moment of his life? Having lectured Lord Black and other Canadians on just how un-Canadian it is to accept distinctions from the fountain of honour, and having forced the man to choose between his citizenship and the House of Lords, Mr. Chretien now basks in the resounding knell of the gong to end all gongs. Let's not be afraid to roll our eyes just a little.

I’m looking forward to reading Conrad Black’s opinion on the matter.

Obama dissing America

President Obama has been busy speechifying at home and abroad and wherever he goes manages to ‘apologize’ for America’s past. Conrad Black has been keeping notes:

... disapproving of the use of the atomic bomb by one of his party's most admired presidents, Harry S Truman, was an astonishing (and unjust) open goal to offer to America's enemies.

... not clear what possessed him to refer to America's economic performance, which carried much of the world on its back for the last 25 years, with apology if not shame on his visit to Europe last month, while praising Europe for its social democracy.

... sat as mute as a suet pudding while Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's Morales, Cuba's Raul Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, ... flayed the United States as the source of all Latin America's problems. ... the practice of blaming everything on the United States is now confined to the far left [including the far left of the Democratic Party, so why would Obama contradict the commie thugs?].

... while in Europe, President Obama has indicted his country and his predecessors for arrogance, dismissive-ness, genocide, torture and insufficient respect for the Muslim world. Does the poor old U. S. A. really deserve this, and deserve the message to be delivered by its leader in the continent that gave the world totalitarian Communism, Nazism, Robespierre's Reign of Terror and all the pogroms and massacres of Russia, Armenia and Bulgaria?

Black wonders whether this might be part of some subtle strategy (my bold):

... confusing America's enemies and tuning up the atmospherics as only a non-white president could do, flying trial balloons and reconnoitring ...

Then again it’s more likely just a sign that the Democratic far left influence is holding sway in the Obama administration. Obama’s many ‘apologies’ are strongly reminiscent of the anti-American rhetoric that has long been standard fare from that quarter (or half) of the Democratic Party (the part Anne Coulter refers to as the "traitor wing").

And speaking of a "non-white president", his apologetics bring to mind Obama’s former ‘spiritual advisor’. Perhaps Obama was listening more closely than he claims to Black liberationist Jeremiah ("God damn America!") Wright during those twenty years.

Kill the CBC

The National Post has recently run a number of opinion columns debating the state of the CBC. Conrad Black thinks it has a valuable role to play but isn’t fulfilling it. Today, Robert Cushman boosts the ‘CEEB’ and Lorne Gunter, in about half as many words, much more convincingly demolishes it.
Cushman, having been weaned under the influence of the BEEB, has a fondness for government subsidized broadcasting and, amazingly, doesn’t see the CBC’s ideological bias, referring to:

... the supposed "liberal bias" of the CBC.

Lorne Gunter, on the other hand, has no difficulty detecting the CBC’s pronounced leftward list and what to do about it:

The CBC will never be able to exorcize its left-wing missionary zeal -- for global warming, for Islam, for big government, Barack Obama, multiculturalism, public health care, human rights commissions and so on.
... If the left-right "balance" at the CBC were as close as 10-1, I would be surprised.
... the CBC Web site no better represents a diversity of opinion than the workers' central committee at Karl Marx Widget Factory #6.
... So the only thing to do with Mother Corp is to pull down its office buildings and stations and pour salt in their foundations.

Lorne Gunter is absolutely correct. It’s why I no longer tune into CBC TV or radio. My blood pressure is already too high.
I have only one point to add to Mr. Gunter’s. Governments should not be permitted to subsidize ANY enterprise that competes directly with private enterprise; or in other words, private enterprise should not be required to subsidize its competition.

Black reviews Atwood

I never doubted that Conrad Black would make good use of his time in jail. It’s hard to imagine the author of biographies of Roosevelt, Nixon and Duplessis whiling away the hours wallowing in self pity or otherwise wasting his time. Aside from being highly intelligent, educated, industrious and intellectually energetic the guy is well connected with the publishing field. All he needs is a library, a pencil and paper (even the roll in his cell would do) and he’s in business as a serious writer.

The latest example of his time well spent is his review of Margaret Atwood’s recent CBC Massey Lectures Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. As is fashionable in leftist circles Atwood attempts to justify an anti-capitalist line of thinking that links the world’s moral and material woes to financial culprits. Conrad admires Atwood’s talent:

Payback is well written, even by Margaret Atwood’s very high standards, and is an etymological tour de force, ... a stimulating, learned and stylish read from an eminent author writing from a heartfelt perspective.

But he isn’t buying her "heartfelt" thesis. Atwood’s references to Faustian pacts with the Devil, Ebenezer Scrooge, The Merchant of Venice, Henry VIII and many others are skillfully rebutted with Black concluding:

I don’t really see a straight line from the Egyptian Crocodile God to the Cockroach Spirit, and the economic-terrorists have oversold the green scare.

Excellent stuff [via the Post]. Now wait for the letters of praise along with more futile calls for the Post to keep ‘the criminal Black’ out of its pages.

Conrad Black loses appeal

Bad news. Conrad Black's convictions were upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. His attorney, Andrew Frey:

[said further] steps could include petitioning the judicial panel for another hearing or taking Lord Black's case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

... criticized the ruling for containing a number of factual errors. In arguing that Lord Black did not receive a fair trial, he declared the case the weakest he had seen in his 45-year legal career.

Here's the entire Seventh Court ruling.

Conrad Black adapting to life in the slammer

Conrad reports:

"I am doing fine. This is a safe and civilized place and I don't anticipate any difficulty,'' Black said in an e-mail to The Canadian Press from his Florida prison.

... he helped his lawyers draft their appeal motion, which was filed with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on March 14.

... Black's appeal is expected to go before the court in June, and prosecutors are due to file their reply next month.

Good luck Conrad!

Conrad Black

These guys say it better than I ever could:

Father Raymond de Souza:

Since the outset ... I have believed that the American prosecutors were criminalizing what was essentially a management dispute. After following the trial closely, I was confirmed in that judgment.

Lord Black is a man of words. He is noted for his delight in using them. He devoted his business life to publishing them. He has written millions of them himself, from columns to weighty biographies. He is a man of words. And he would not say he was guilty simply to make life easier, because he respects the words too much. Is that not what a man of his word should do?

Robert Fulford:

In the shadow of the Chicago disaster, it's easy to forget what he's done for Canada. In the 1990s, anybody could tell that Canadian journalism was mediocre, but only Conrad Black did anything about it. ...Unlike nine out of 10 publishers, he was interested above all in making good newspapers, and he asked of his employees only that they care as much about quality as he did.

While six and a half years in a Florida prison will be no picnic, Black will make the best of it. He’ll no doubt go on being at least as productive a writer as before.

Conrad Black - a victim of the times

George Jonas has an interesting take on Conrad Black’s sorry situation. In a nutshell, Jonas believes Black was the victim of his company’s usurpers who took advantage of the prevailing anti-corporate "Zeitgeist" and enlisted government regulators and prosecutors to do their dirty work:

The liquidators wanted to cash in. They had no use for the founder.... As far as they were concerned, the Moor had done his duty, the Moor could go.
[...]
Larceny through government isn't new, though we usually expect to see it in Russia or China. But in our days of government intervention....They point regulators at their targets, a grand jury being their biggest gun.
[...]
Inquisitors rarely fail to find the heresy they're looking for. By the end of 2003, Conrad was ousted as CEO; in 2005 he was indicted, and in the spring of 2007 his trial began.
[...]
The easiest way to rob a man is to call him a thief.
[...]
The evidence didn't support the contention that Conrad and his codefendants defrauded the shareholders......Never mind the evidence, [prosecutors] told the jury in their closing statements. Forget the paper trail. Just follow the money, and whoever got it, convict him.
[...]
Conrad had the facts on his side; the prosecutors had the spirit of the times. When the charge is witchcraft, and the venue is 17th-century Salem, whose chances do you fancy?
[...]
After his ouster, stock values had dwindled from around $19 to barely $4.....Most of those who ran Hollinger into the ground never made it to court, either. They were content to draw their multi-million dollar fees for dismantling the house that Conrad built...
[...]
...the media talked about "victimless crimes," but they were wrong. The victims were sitting at the defendants' table.

Good luck Conrad! May your appeals be successful!