Thursday, November 17, 2005
The Irony Fairy's on the Job
Earlier today I got an email from a Canadian friend:
There was a party last night, celebrating Maclean's Magazine's (a Canadian news mag) 100th anniversary. One of the people there was Peter C. Newman, who was editor of Macleans for a few years, and who recently published both a book about former P.M. Brian Mulroney, and a book of his own memoirs. Newman walks into the party last night, and is immediately served papers for a law suit Conrad Black has launched against him, for "libelous remarks" Newman supposedly made about him in his memoir. Conrad Black was also at the party. The thing Black is suing Peter C. Newman for, in his book, is a quotation. It was written by Black's own Board of Directors, claiming that Black engaged in specific illegal activities! Newman didn't even write it, but quoted it!A few hours later, she sent me the followup: Ex-publisher Conrad Black indicted
Criminal fraud charges were announced on Thursday against Conrad Black by U.S. prosecutors who accused the one-time publishing tycoon of looting his media empire, once one of the world's largest.Do you think that Black will withdraw the libel suit now? ...Neither do I.
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Now, of course, the betting is on whether the lordly Conrad will leave Toronto and go to Chicago, to turn himself in. My bet is that he'll stay put right here in Toronto and essentially dare the American legal system to come and get him. Especially since he believes he's above the little people and their rules.
The amusing thing about all of that is that, having renounced his Canadian citizenship altogether, so he could become a Lord in Britain and literally fulfill his vision of his own lordly superiority -- he isn't in fact entitled, now, to any of the usual legal protections available to Canadian citizens. So Canada could, in theory, kick him out of the country any time it wants to. I doubt we'll do that, since it would be too over-the-top vindictive.
But it's amusing, in a nasty sort of way, that while lord Conrad was so eager to dump Canada to fulfill his great plans for himself, he was very hasty in running back here to Canada's protections as soon as he got into trouble.
I'm afraid the schaudenfreude is pretty thick around here just now.
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The amusing thing about all of that is that, having renounced his Canadian citizenship altogether, so he could become a Lord in Britain and literally fulfill his vision of his own lordly superiority -- he isn't in fact entitled, now, to any of the usual legal protections available to Canadian citizens. So Canada could, in theory, kick him out of the country any time it wants to. I doubt we'll do that, since it would be too over-the-top vindictive.
But it's amusing, in a nasty sort of way, that while lord Conrad was so eager to dump Canada to fulfill his great plans for himself, he was very hasty in running back here to Canada's protections as soon as he got into trouble.
I'm afraid the schaudenfreude is pretty thick around here just now.
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