Odd Thoughts: B.S. syndrome hinted in denials

“Aw, Mom! I didn’t do anything!”

The earnest, young voice from a couple of houses down rang through the neighbourhood.

Donna and I were lounging in the backyard on a gorgeous, sunny day, and we simultaneously turned to each other and said, “He did it!”

And we laughed.

We never knew what it was that drew that loud, yet plaintive denial, but we just knew he was guilty, guilty, guilty.

It was years ago, but the memory of it remains solidly ensconced in the nether cracks and crannies of my brain, always ready to be dredged out whenever I hear a politician or some other such creature get up on its hind legs and issue a denial that strains the length and breadth of credulity.

It’s the Bill Shakespeare (B.S.) syndrome. From Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much.”

This time the overstatement spewed from Mike Duffy’s mouth – or rather from the mouth of his mouthpiece: “He didn’t do anything!”

I’m not sure if the credibility factor increases or decreases when a lawyer protests too much on your behalf… but if there’s a difference, it’s negligible anyway.

Surely, you remember Mike Duffy. He’s the journalist who cracked open the Senate Scandal, revealing abuses of Senate funding and misrepresentation on an astounding scale.

Only, he didn’t do it as a journalist, but rather as a former journalist.

He did it as a senator who is now a former senator, turfed from that august body, along with fellow journalist Pamela Wallin, for exposing the abuses and misrepresentations through direct involvement in them.

Now, in addition to losing his senate seat, he is charged with a host of criminal charges linked to the things that lost him his senate seat.

Things have gotten weirder for Ex-Senator Duffy. It’s been reported that, he’s being sued by a woman who claims he’s her father.

She doesn’t want his money, according to the reports, she just wants him to admit to being her dear ol’ Dad.

Like the Senate stuff, though, the former senator from… well, that’s part of the mystery, isn’t it?… he didn’t do anything.

My Mom used to love telling a funny story about one of my brothers – actually, he was pretty close to being the most angelic among us, but he nevertheless had his devilish lapses.

Mom called him out after one of those rare lapses – a lapse that he thought he’d covered up quite effectively.

After the motherly lecture, he asked her, “But how did you know?”

“It’s written on your forehead,” Mom explained.

And thereafter, bright boy that he was, he disguised any further less-than-perfect behaviour by walking around with his hands covering his forehead.

(Which puzzled him even more deeply when it seemed Mom became even better at catching him at his rare transgressions.)

But getting back to the Senate shenanigans, one of the most interesting charges that are being preferred against the former Senator Duffy involves an allegation that he was on the receiving end of a bribe.

Besides the loudly proffered expostulation that “he didn’t do anything,” there’s something about that charge that has me a bit baffled.

How is it that he can be charged with taking a bribe, but no one is being charged with giving a bribe?

The RCMP need to be looking for someone in Ottawa who’s walking around with his hands over his forehead.