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Floating a trial balloon to measure potential reactions is not often prelude to the sincerest of apologies. But in the end, no real apology was forthcoming

It was absolutely torching their brand. People were laughing in their faces. Something had to be done. And this stand-by-for-contrition narrative was lent some credence, fittingly enough, by anonymous sources. “A senior government official said one of the options being discussed is for Trudeau to ‘show some ownership over the actions of his staff and officials’ in their dealings with his former attorney general,” CBC reported on March 5.

Floating a trial balloon to measure potential reactions is not often prelude to the sincerest of apologies. But in the end, no real apology was forthcoming. The brand-torching continued unabated. And by Wednesday this week, the Anonymous Sources had come full circle: Wilson-Raybould had set various extraordinary conditions for remaining in Cabinet, they told various outlets.

One of them was that Trudeau apologize.

So. Weeks after the Anonymous Sources had floated an apology, and it seemed inevitable, we are now meant to see Wilson-Raybould’s request for it as evidence of ego gone to seed — “huge demands” constituting an “extraordinary step,” Bob Hepburn gasped in the Toronto Star. “Fantasy run wild,” tweeted his Star colleague Heather Mallick, whose human form is but a vessel for transporting Trudeau’s water. “JWR seemed to think she was co-Prime Minister.”

The great thing about doing politics the old way, especially when you don’t actually believe in the new way, is it spares you being exposed as a total fraud

Wilson-Raybould also allegedly demanded that her replacement, David Lametti, not be allowed to overrule her final decision, freely made, and grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement. No biggie, right? Trudeau & Co. have always insisted it was up to her. Surely they wouldn’t install a new attorney general just to let a bent company off the hook! But Liberal partisans would have us see it as hypocrisy: Where Wilson-Raybould argued her mandate was being interfered with, here she is trying to interfere in her successor’s.