"Um, what did you say was on the pizza exactly?"

The adventurous diner is in her element in Aguas Calientes, Peru

Oh. And one more thing:

Today's headlines blare that the erstwhile PM has alleged there was nothing sinister about him glomming cash-stuffed envelopes from sketchy lobbyists. No sir.

Based on the (highly Irish) tenor of some right honourable ummm, gentlemen's past testimony, the Oliphant Commission's lead counsel might wanna next ask the former PM if, by that, he actually meant he only used his right hand to handle them envelopes.

To make real sure this time, y'know, Dexter?

I'm just sayin'...

No whore like an old whore *

For a guy hellbent on preserving, what he seems to believe is a, ummm, statesman's legacy and good name, former PM Brian Mulroney has quite an approach.

A brief pause to declare biases: my visceral hatred of the man and every oily thing he's done or stood for, has raged undying from the time he started smarming the backroom boys back in the antediluvian era, to this day. We keep punting the bastard out of the headlines. Still he has the nerve to keep coming back and re-offending, already! He once took voice coaching to lower his timbre and sound smoother. Still my large, sensitive ears must instinctively fold themselves shut periodically, to muffle an undertone of nails on a blackboard. Just so ya know.

My distaste stems from a sleazy style and an unidentifiable substance. I possess the clamouring sixth sense that every smirk - and he smirked a bunch, back in the day - signalled (yet another) gleeful skate to the thinnest edge of propriety. He was always more about clinching the deal - any deal - than what the hell actually came of it. Just as long as he could beat his chest in public and brag in private about being the smart guy that made it happen. And he seemed to truly love putting one over on just about anybody, then justifying it in technical terms so narrow and specious that only he and hangers-on seemed to be able to believe they were in the true spirit of the thing. It wasn't about the good of the country, or even his party, or the power. It was about putting one over on someone. Anyone.

You see where I'm going with this. Every time the guy did something, somebody got screwed. They knew they'd been screwed, and resented it. Their last sight usually was of Mulroney skating away on ice so thin it crackled, thumbing his nose over his shoulder. Eventually, most of the country felt that way. He skated off again, ducking humiliation by handing over the party to a Patsy (actually, a Kim...) so that he could say he'd always led the Tories to majorities. Technically.

Since, he has acted to save what he regards as his good name, in ways that beggar the idea of a good name. It's a world where being called Right Honourable is everything. Acting right honourably, not so much. This time he may succeed again - it's important for him to appear to be a success in others' eyes - but only in technical terms so narrow and specious as to hollow out the 'win' utterly. His performance at the inquiry on the Hill this week has been vintage: tightly scripted, smarmy, blustering, self-congratulatory, even crocodile tears. Along with gratuitous digressions that attempt yet again to rewrite history and re-shaft old enemies. Even now, he thinks he can charm the country one more time with sins of omission, half-truths and hubris. Possibly he will. Technically.

But it has been a performance. The guy wants to be liked and well thought of, and has no idea why so many hate him. Even as PM, he made a deeply flawed dramatic character: grandiose, venal, over-eager to be loved, fonder of appearances than actual substance. And pathetic. He still is. And he still deserves no sympathy.

* A curiously relevant Mulroney quote... don'cha think?

Llama dramarama, part four: the mouth-watering conclusion

What better way to forget your troubles than a trip to stunning Machu Picchu? Unless, of course, the place is lousy with llamas and you happen to have a morbid fear of the ankle-biting Andean amblers.

After pointed accusations from Cedric ("You knew there would be llamas here, didn't you?!") and several lengthy apologies from me ("I will personally hand-wash your little red hat every night for the next month!"), Cedric calmed down and began to relax.

Especially once he realized no health-conscious llama would ever eat a centuries-old gnome with flat feet and wooden teeth.

Next we work on Cedric's fear of John Baird's hair ... Oh, right, that's my unending phobia ...

The r*tf*ck effect deconstructed

In the quasi/legal three ring circus that was Ottawa yesterday:

• A former PM rehashed and reshaded ancient (disingenuous) self-justifications for what a reasonable person might call suspect behaviour;
• There was a suspect "She said/She said" parliamentary committee hearing about an MP's personal nannygate;
• And Hizz suspect Honor's pricey legal help executed the expected surgical hatchet job on an accuser's credibility. (Hey. It is his job.);

...and I arched what passes for an eyebrow on a dog, over the symbolism of the mayor's alleged utterance to accuser Terry Kilrea at an, ummm, alleged courtesy meeting:

"We could have just ratfucked you."

It is stated that the mayor shook his head vigorously from the pews as if to deny this. The judge, if he's good as he's supposed to be, will ignore that bit of mimery for the voters as, well, mimery. And irrelevant to any legal findings. I digress.

If the statement occurred - and it's not impossible, boys often being locker-room boys - I find it disillusioning yet plausible that a person of the political persuasion might extend the courtesy of not ratfucking a single opponent, the better to do it to an entire city.

I am often cynical. And I am certainly weary. But it seems to me that the subversive common thread in each of these is a tired certainty that for far too long, many short sighted, system-gaming politicians - former, current, and wannabe - consider that playing silly partisan buggers with each other is just business as usual.

And every time they think they've scored cheap points on an opponent, what's really getting ratfucked is a country, its democratic institutions - and every member of the municipal, provincial and federal electorates. Woof.