The agent for the federal Conservative Party in the last general election “made materially false and misleading statements” on its financial returns, Canada’s elections commissioner alleges… 

Opps.   
Calling a media conference and not telling the select few media they are the only ones invited is not. a. good. thing. So who got invited to the private briefing? Kady O’Malley:

These  now infamous “private briefings” for select journalists - most of whom were shocked to find out that they had been invited to an exclusive event - were made public almost immediately, which was was pretty much inevitable from the moment that Conservative Party media wrangler sent out a notice to his handpicked journalistic prey. Contrary to everything that he ought to have learned in the two years and change that he’s been on the Hill, he still doesn’t seem to have grasped the fact that reporters talk to each other. Yes, even reporters from competing news outlets. No, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s just what happens when there’s a body of media assigned to cover a particular beat, like, say, Canadian politics.

This was a pre-emptive attempt by The Conservative Party of Canada to stay ahead of tomorrows headlines on the search warrant  of Conservative Party headquarters.  And this really is as stupid as it looks. (check out the video at CTV)  It’s pretty pathetic watching a couple of party officials sneaking out a back door.
Optics people, optics.

David Akins got his hands on a copy of the warrant, and the 700 pages of court documents even though he wasn’t invited to the ’secret’ media meeting. La Presse, The Toronto Star and CTV were invited.  David Akins story:

Court documents obtained Sunday show that the commissioner was looking for:

- correspondence and e-mails between party officials, local candidates, and advertising companies working for the party;

- invoices, contracts, and financial information related to advertising during the 2006 general election;

- scripts and recordings of ads that ran during the campaign.

When CBC, (French and English) CanWest, Macleans and The Canadian Press showed up, they were asked to leave.

This kind of contempt for media and media consumers (voters) is absolutely amazing. 
I’d like to think of something intelligent to say but I can’t stop laughing.   This is theatre of the absurd.  Manipulation gone amok.  So who is The Conservative Party of Canada going to blame now?

What the heck were Doug Finlay and Ryan Sparrow and Conservative Party officials thinking? Okay gentlemen it’s not a well kept secret  you don’t like the media, but didn’t anyone tell you do not attempt to pit them off against each other, and didn’t anyone ever suggest you do not try to sneak around a couple of Ottawa hotels holding a private briefing you forgot to tell invited journalists was private? Guess not.  And you don’t give your new best media friends only part of the material.  HAHAHAHAHA!

 Hello Mr. Finlay. You do know you aren’t in high school anymore don’t you? These men and women don’t write for MySpace or Facebook. 
Hello Mr. Sparrow. Is this what they teach you in media spokesman school?
You did not only mess with the Parliamentary Press Corp you messed with every voter who will turn on their radio, TV or computer tomorrow or grab a paper on the way to work. Your little stunt is going to be the. top. story. and when voters are awake enough to understand how you thought you could manipulate them, they’ll get down to the nitty gritty of actually reading some of those documents.  Yes, this will play out in the courts, meantime I hope you hear the laughter coast to coast from the court of public opinion.

Nothing on The Blogging Tory aggregator yet.

Peace, order and good government, eh?
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