Betrayal

Someone hasn't taken Meeker's linguistic advice to heart. Terry Roberts quotes Le chef in today's Telegram:

"It's really unfortunate when one of our own comes out and betrays us like that," Williams said of Griffin.

"Griffin" being Mark Griffin, a lawyer in Grand Falls-Windsor who had the temerity to not just write a letter to an editor, but to use that platform to ask questions.

(A body can't help but wonder whether Mr. Griffin has been on the receiving end of any "set the record straight" phone calls.)

While the Mark Griffin who wrote the letter, according to Konrad Yakabuski, "professes to hold no political allegiances", someone named Mark Griffin, also of Grand Falls-Windsor, made an annual contribution of $200 to the PC Party in 2003, and of $500 in each of 2006 and 2007. A certain Mark Griffin, again of Grand Falls-Windsor, also gave an election-period contribution of $100 to losing PC candidate Clayton Forsey in Exploits in 2003. A person of that name and address also quite ecumenically donated $150 in 2003 to the campaign of the late Gerry Tobin, running then as a Dipper in Grand Falls-Buchans.

Then there's a Mark Griffin of the firm Inder & Griffin — formerly J. Mark Griffin Law Office — with offices in Grand Falls-Windsor and Lewisporte. That particular Mark Griffin's law partner, Mr. Karl Inder, shares the name and GFW location with a Karl Inder who, like the Mark Griffin of the preceding party finance history, has a good record of supporting the Danny Williams Team. Mr. Inder made annual contributions to the PC Party of $300 in 2003 and $500 in 2007, along with election-period contributions of $250 to PC candidates Paula Flood in Grand Falls-Buchans, and Clayton Forsey in Exploits in 2003. A Karl Inder also contributed $500 towards the campaign of PC candidate Jerome Kennedy running far away from central, over in Carbonear-Harbour Grace, in 2007.

There are no contributions on record from either a Mark Griffin or a Karl Inder to non-PC causes, other than the Gerry Tobin NDP donation noted previously.

So what would be most interesting to know is who, in the mind of Dear Leader, are the "us" whom Mark Griffin, one of "our" own, has betrayed.

This corner doesn't know whether Mark Griffin, Writer of Letters and Asker of Questions, is the same Mark Griffin who has been a great supporter of the democratic process throughout much of this decade. If they are one and the same person, however, it might be that "us", the victim of the egregious betrayal, are the Royal We Himself, or his Party, or his Government, instead of, or in addition to, Us the People, so cruelly betrayed by one of Our own.

Well, at least to the extent that in a political culture, with the ethical compass of a one-party regime, where the interests of the Premier, his Party, his Government, and his People have become commensurate, it's even possible to make the distinction anymore.