Interesting phrase, don’t you think?  It is cynical in the extreme, it reveals much about the way business is done and, essentially, it (the phrase) is a lie-in-waiting.  Here’s why: it is either a 100% lie or it is a 100% condemnation of the subject claiming plausible deniability (pd) to being stupid beyond belief.

Re: Duffy, Harper either didn’t know about ‘some things’ when he should have because it was a big deal, it was close-to-home and it was possibly illegal.   Or else he did know but, because he has a fall-guy-filter in the form of a Chief of staff, that person gets thrown under the bus if required.  There is no ‘win’ for Harper. Crooked or stupid.  And, worse, hiding behind someone else’s skirts makes him Nixon-esque.  The irony is that whether Duffy is a crook, Harper is a crook or else they are both incompetent, they both look bad.

They both smell.

Nigel Wright even comes across as stupid because he did what the Con party said was wrong.  Imagine that?  The Con Party said, “Don’t bail out Duffy.  He was wrong.”  And they did it anyway and then they are caught covering up.

I am inclined to go for the plausible deniability position simply because that is why they have Chiefs of staff – to act as the backstop filter.  And that is the way they do things.  The mud stops there.  But what does that say about our leaders?  It says; “Well, we are going to have some nasty stuff goin’ down and I don’t wanna get sprayed brown and smelly when it happens.  So, let us create a few fall-guy positions and, even better, let me just charge them now with ‘KEEP ME SAFE. DO WHAT YA GOTTA DO BUT GIVE ME PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY!’

In other words: We play dirty.  We play to win.  And we do not tell the truth.  

It is the way politics and, to a large extent, big business is done.  And NOT just in Canada. If you think otherwise, get a really big screen and subscribe to the Disney Channel.  You are living in a fantasy.  We live the BIG LIE all the live-long day.