Mountains

Lin Jackson, defending B.C. resident and former Premier Brian Peckford against the scurrilous attacks of, say, current cabinet ministers, writes in today's Telegram:

He was determined to bend heaven and Earth to work toward economic self-reliance for Newfoundland, and as a consequence, regain our self-respect as a people.

Funny. Isn't that what the Danny Cult also claims of Our Dear Premier? Could it be that the Danny Cult is merely the Peckford Cult with a new clay idol to worship?

Jackson continues:

But an equally important part of that legacy [of Peckford's serial references to the courts] is the veritable mountain of groundbreaking research and documentation concerning foreign overfishing, Labrador power, prospects for offshore oil, constitutional rights and other such matters, that Peckford's ministers had produced in the course of various litigations.

Mountain? A veritable modern-day Joint Appendix?

Well, in that case, that mountain of documentation (wherever it is located), in so far as it pertains to foreign overfishing, must surely, surely, contain a few foothills, some spurs, maybe the odd minaret sub-summit, of documentation on the fish-for-trade deals that Peckford, among many, many others, insist actually happened.

Indeed, that fish-for-trade-deals proof almost must exist in Lin Jackson's "mountain", if not in Jackson's imagination, because, even after having rummaged around in his basement, Peckford himself couldn't find it in his personal papers!

And when Lin Jackson gushes:

Inspired by a desire to allay traditional attitudes of dependency and cynicism and to reorient provincial policy in a more positive direction ("have-not no more"), he presided over an upsurge of local pride, confidence and optimism that managed to survive the glum, retrogressive interregnum of subsequent governments and to flourish anew under the enlightened initiatives of Danny Williams.

let's just say, history will be the judge of Danny's "enlightenment." History may have at the task sooner than Danny, or Lin Jackson, would like. And:

Which makes it all the more perplexing where all the recent pettiness is coming from. Credit, please, where credit is due.

Credit, to be sure. But, unlike The Independent's notion of accounting, the Balance Sheet must also faithfully record debits: Debits, too, where debits are due.