It's Tiny Violins Time

It seems that Chandler has decided to try to make a profit from his newfound status as "martyr for democracy". Over at Project Alberta, he has posted an announcement for his fundraising dinner for January:



Now, Chandler running another fundraiser is hardly surprising. I rather expected this, but it certainly reinforces my suspicion that Crutcher's announced "conditional nomination candidacy" is little more than a sock-puppet maneuver on Chandler's part.

However, Chandler's attempts to adopt the cloak of martyrdom are actually kind of pathetically funny:



He feels he's been "tarred and feathered" for something he didn't even write. No, he didn't write it, but he clearly sanctioned it - both in spirit and action. Not only did Chandler republish that letter on both "Freedom Radio Network" and the "Concerned Christians Canada" websites, he brags about bankrolling Boissoin's defense:



Even more amusing is Chandler's attempt to rationalize how he is the "hero" in the various human rights decisions which hardly could be argued as "going in his favor".



Lurking in the midst of all that sophistry, Chandler spouts one of the bigger fibs I've ever seen. His sentence implies that not only did he sell his shares two years ago, but that he left the organization around that time. However, as I've blogged before, Chandler in fact remained CEO of the CCC until his resignation in March of 2007.

In other words, through the vast majority of the time from when Boissoin wrote his vile little screed to the point at which he reached a settlement with Rob Wells on behalf of CCC, Freedom Radio Network and himself. At which point it had to be getting painfully obvious that he didn't have a leg to stand on with respect to the various human rights laws involved, and the critical Alberta decision would go against him and the CCC (as a member of the CCC executive at the time, he would hold a certain degree of personal responsibility in the matter).

While Chandler attempts to distance himself from the whole Boissoin incident, he ultimately comes off looking like he not only backs Boissoin, but clearly one must infer that he also backs what Boissoin wrote. At no time that I am aware of has Chandler ever come forward to distance himself from the Boissoin letter's content. In reality he has made it very clear by his actions what he believes. In fact in his mealy-mouthed apology to Rob Wells, Chandler writes:

If you have felt we have done so please accept our deepest apologies. Our views will not change, however, and if and when we discuss this matter again we will be careful to insure that our words are calculated before spoken.

So, while on one side of the coin, he seems to be apologizing, and then he turns around and essentially says that he sees nothing wrong with what has been said - pivoting on the sophistry of "how it was said".

The meme that Chandler is propagating about how he "didn't say or write anything hateful" is only marginally true. There are many who would argue that the transcript of Freedom Radio Network July 29 is hardly pleasant about the matter.