The Lying Game

What with Amy St. Eve having, for the moment, put paid to Lord Black’s shortterm travel plans while she contemplates his longer term itinerary, the greatman’s four month life-in-limbo before sentencing stretches out before him.It’s not like there’s nothing to do. There’s the appeal, whose odds ofsuccess, as Alan Gold pointed out yesterday, are somewhere between slim,slimmer and slimmest. There’s the prospect of further motions to allowBlack to travel home. There’s the seemingly endless bounty of civil actionsto tend to. Another book or two. And then there are always the sideshows. Take,for instance, the recent contretemps between the Eddies and Mark Steyn. Torecap: Steyn reported in the pages of Maclean’s, among other things, that lesdeux demanded an extra million dollars each from his Lordship just prior tosummary arguments. Ed Greenspan wrote—with, let me assure you, Ed Genson’s full concurrence—the following in response:

“Mark Steyn’s opening comments are downright lies and the rest of the pieceis filled with falsehoods and innuendo not worthy of any magazine and hardlyworthy of a tabloid. Mark Steyn did not live up to his minimal professionalresponsibility to contact me or Mr. Genson to get our comments on hisallegations. Maclean’s ought to be ashamed of itself for not ensuring Mr.Black’s lawyers were given an opportunity to respond.”

As the delightful Susan Chandler of the Chicago Tribune said at the bailhearing on Wednesday, “Somebody’s lying.” Isn’t it terrific to have an issue in this entire episode laid out in plain English and in the starkest possible terms? Either Steyn is lying or Genson and Greenspan are lying. Not misspeaking, not prevaricating, not misremembering—lying.

With all that in mind, let me try to move the story forward. The CBC’s Mike Hornbrook reports that, “Black, in an e-mail to me, says Steyn’s assertion that the Eddies were, in effect, extorting a couple of million from him are, in his word, ‘inaccurate’.” Maclean’s editor Ken Whyte, asked for a comment via e-mail wrote, “As Mr. Greenspan hasn’t yet pointed to a specific error of fact, I’ll reserve response until we hear more.”

There you have it. Accusations have been made. The accused has yet to beheard from. And certain of his allies aren’t exactly rushing to his defence.For the moment, we’ll just have to leave it at that.