Article content continued

They failed, of course, because Duffy is a loose cannon and the Conservative senators the PMO was trying to herd were like toddlers on the rampage, prone to random bizarre behaviour and occasional tantrums.

The best proof that they failed is this freaking trial, where a passerby, sitting in, would assume that Wright, the witness, is the alleged perpetrator, or perhaps the PM, and where, this being Ottawa in mid-federal election, every thundered question by Bayne echoes across the land and into the campaign buses where it is parsed to shreds as though the question was the evidence, not the answer.

But if there’s no doubt that this PMO was involved in sometimes grubby conduct, the problem with Bayne’s theory is that it ignores the record.

If Duffy really had wanted to defend his claim that his actual main residence was not in Ottawa but in P.E.I., and that he’d done nothing wrong, he could have easily done it.

After all, he was a veteran former broadcaster, with all the greasy connections that game can entail, and if, the very first time that Wright told him he had to repay his expenses because even if they were potentially legally defensible, they were ethically repellent, the Old Duff could have called a press conference, told the world what was going on and taken his chances.

But what he tried to do, instead, was get the best deal he could, hang onto the job he inexplicably loves without ever explicitly acknowledging wrongdoing or paying a sou.