What do the "Grewal Tapes" Really Tell Us ?

As a voter, I find it necessary to periodically review and analyze the activities of various political parties in this country.

Frankly, the Grewal Tapes incident has crystallized a few things:

1) The current minority Liberal government is willing to bargain with just about anyone in order to swing a majority of votes in the House of Commons.

2) Dosanjh is fundamentally an opportunist - he'll say whatever he thinks he needs to in order to move his own objectives forward.

3) Martin's Chief of Staff, Mr. Tim Murphy, doesn't exactly come off looking like a hero. He looks like a standard back room political operative, and little about that breed of animal impresses me.

4) Mr. Grewal, by his own actions, is a man willing to betray someone's trust in order to achieve some kind of personal gain. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the man.

5) Whether Mr. Harper, or his so-called strategists, made the decision to release the recordings in edited "dribs-and-drabs" doesn't matter. Tactically, it was a stupid move. Releasing anything less than the full tapes is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians. (Whether the omitted pieces are materially important is a moot point - the Conservatives have demonstrated a contempt for the Canadian voter that irritates me beyond all belief)

The tapes themselves provide little or no useful information. At most one might assert that it is a rather vivid insight into the kind of backroom shenanigans that go on in Ottawa these days. (Admittedly, it's rather like turning on the light in a prostitute's bedroom - the image is lurid, but not one that is worth considering beyond that)

Fundamentally, these tapes tell us (the voters) that both the Conservative and Liberal parties are willing to do anything they can to grasp power - even if it is for "just a little longer".

Perhaps the message that voters should take from the past couple of weeks silliness is not that either party is "good/bad/evil/corrupt" per se, but rather that neither party is in fact presenting the attributes of "good governance" that we should be demanding of them.