Chronicle Herald: Chretien PMO Manipulated Media And Had Journalists Fired....

With the releases of Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, the usual Harper bashers are all doing their best to give credibility to both the author and what the book alleges about both PM Stephen Harper and the PMO. The latest comes from trash journalist Stephen Maher of the Chronicle Herald, a newspaper that makes the National Enquirer looks like a legitimate news source.

But the part I really enjoy about journalists like Maher is that in trying to aid Lawrence's cause, actually cast quite the cloud over former PM Jean Chretien. The guy the Liberals brag won three majority governments, seems to have been quite the vindictive leader. According to Martin and others, Chretien's PMO placed pressure on various news outlets not to give bad press to things like Shawinigate, with allegations that the then PMO under Chretien had journalists fired from their positions for daring to write on controversies surrounding Chretien.

Of course anyone aware of what happened to the former head of the BDC, Frances Bedouin, and his victory in a lawsuit that claimed he was attacked both financially and emotionally for coming forward with Chretien's involvement in getting a questionable loan for someone wouldn't be surprised by this. I myself can't wait for the Fifth Estate on CBC to run with this story about political interference in the reporting of news to Canadian's (sarcasm on). So without further adieu, here is Lawrence Martin's quote from the Chronicle Herald article written by Stephen Maher.

"Q: In spite of your efforts to balance the book, Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, referred to you as a "Big-L Liberal." When you worked at Southam News, as a columnist, I don’t think you were very popular with the Chretien government because of your many columns on the Shawinigate scandal. Did that have anything to do with your departure from Southam?

A: Yes indeed. I got into great trouble with the Liberal hier- archy and the Southam publishers because they went at Shawinigate and related semi-corruption-related stories involving the Chretin government with considerable aggressiveness.

This, as I say, resulted in a lot of difficulty for me, to the point where I was eventually dismissed by the Aspers, who ran Southam. I was told, and many others were told, that pressure was coming from the Chretien PMO on the owners of the papers to get rid of me and to get rid of Russell Mills, publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, who was let go also, because he gave credibility to Shawinigate and those types of stories.'