It's all Over Now (but the Obits)

The Oliphant  inquiry, or whoever's, into the 'faux pas' of Canada's former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his 'partner' Karl Heinz (der buchbeinder) Schreiber, whimpered to a 14 million dollar close, yesterday, with the judge issuing his findings. It amounts to a two minute minor.


Bottom line: the Canadian government spent 4 million bucks (again) to pay Mulroney's lawyers while he defended his honour against impugnity. His ex-buddy, and chief witness, who was testifying, or so it seemed, to keep himself off a Lufthansa jet and out of a German jail, was 'blowing the whistle' and 'coming clean'. Not about the real stuff, mind you,  the Airbus slush fund and the offshore banking done by Brian's down east buddies, but the niggardly $275 000, or so, paid for sales services not rendered.

Mulroney copped to getting some of that money ($225 000) and accidentally, almost, forgetting to claim it as income. It was safe and sound in his sock drawer for a couple of years, eh?  But that was it, and he wasn't prime minister, and those armoured vehicles for the army looked like a good deal, and Schreiber had an honest face, an all. And the high dudgeon he felt when he realized he might have bedded-down someone less honourable than himself. Why it brought a tear to the eye!

Not as much a tear had he been paying his own lawyers' bill, I'm sure.

Schreiber couldn't  testify forever, and wouldn't testify about his retirement nest egg - the same one they couldn't prove Mulroney got through his pal Frank Moores. So, he was packed off to Germany for a speedy trial, a lot more speedy than the inquiry, and a lengthy jail term. He'll be a very old man when he gets to start celebrating the rewards of a life spent on the inside track, unless he has some young doxie helping him spend it. Maybe if something were to happen to the gnadige Frau.....

So the official results are:
   -It looks like Mulroney may have done something ''less than honourable. But was he a crook? Did he do unspeakable evil? Well, we're not going there. Mulroney is to be punished by having a legacy that, along with moving Canada ahead in a number of ways, (NAFTA being a biggie), he spent like a drunk from Shawinigan, looked out for number one, and took money from a two-bit German shyster. Canadians don't really give a shit any more. Trying to stick something to 'Lyin' Brian' has cost us millions more than we needed to spend on the asshole.

So, as Pharaoh said in the 'Ten Commandments' -" So let it be written, so let it be done."

 Done and over with. Nothing to do now but wait for the obits.