Collateral Damage

As the long days in Room 1241 stretch out behind him, and the immediacy of the trial gives way to the ambiguities of appeal and the awful possibility of punishment, Conrad Black continues to trail a rough wake behind his juddering juggernaut.

Dissatisfied with the performance of the two Eddies, Mark Steyn set out to tarnish their reputations in the pages of Maclean’s. No matter the context, Steyn’s assertion that Eddie squared asked for an additional million bucks on the eve of summary arguments (an allegation we’ve been unable to verify) doesn’t look good. Alas, the damage is done, and like many who’ve come before, both lawyers likely rue the day they agreed to make a deal with this particular devil. But surely that can’t be the end of it. There are still far too many loose threads to be tugged, reputations to be unravelled. Among the several candidates, might I recommend three, in train? Maclean’s magazine, Ken Whyte and Ted Rogers. Why, you ask? A venerable newsmagazine systematically misleads its readers using an ambiguous editorial approach (one that looks suspiciously like advocacy for the defence) in covering a criminal trial. The editor who set this course admits in open court, as a witness for the defence, that he took a $100,000 payment for past service two years after he left the employ of the guy on trial. Meantime, the owner of the magazine hasn’t had one word to say about any of it, either because he doesn’t get it or he just doesn’t care. As this ship goes down, the passengers, even the ones in first class, flounder to avoid getting sucked down in the whirlpool.