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And it is the scale of the thing that is its salient feature, its extraordinary factor. It’s one thing, say, to lob an irritating or careless backbencher over the battlements, to sate the anger of the mob below. But, to so speak, for Mr. Spock to hurl himself on the rocks to save Captain Kirk is a scenario none could have contemplated.

So we arrive at the primary question that emerges from this week’s drama.

For Mr. Spock to hurl himself on the rocks to save Captain Kirk is a scenario none could have contemplated

Why was so explosive a gesture thought necessary? Why did Gerald Butts resign? To deter a stronger storm? And what tempest could be stronger than one which necessitates the prime minister of the Prime Minister to annihilate his political career?

We knew this SNC-J W-R story was ominous and threatening already. But no one (outside possibly Robert Fife and Steven Chase) in the sage chorus of the Ottawa press gallery or the wisest lookers-on even dreamed it could pass from “nothing to see here” to Mr. Butts abandoning his near-Siamese counterpart, as a selfless gesture, needful for Mr. Trudeau to weather a greater storm yet to come.

To underscore: no one thought this matter was so threatening that Gerald Butts, Mr. Trudeau’s secret-sharer, mentor, strategist, fixer and friend, would choose to fall on his sword — before there was yet any clear, agreed-upon, set of facts over what is being contested.

Photo by Justin Tang/CP

Resignations follow revelations. It is not in the course of political nature that they precede them. The public still does not know what all this is about. Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould’s silence (as I write anyway) is still intact. Words she has still yet to speak are the Damoclean Sword over Mr. Trudeau’s stay in office and the fate of his government.