The Liberal caucus is famously leaky.
Now recently released diplomatic cables show that even the party’s top brass – including current Interim Leader Bob Rae – were spilling party and caucus secrets to the U.S. Embassy.
A handful of diplomatic cables released over the past week by Wikileaks show the U.S. government isn’t hurting for sources when it comes time to pen updates to Washington on the latest in Liberal politics.
One June 16, 2009 cable – titled “Liberals begin to blink?” – describes a conversation that day between a counsellor at the embassy and Mr. Rae, then the party’s foreign affairs critic. According to the note, Mr. Rae was indicating Liberal MPs were not behind then-leader Michael Ignatieff’s recent election sabre-rattling.
Mr. Rae “admitted that, behind closed doors, the caucus had considerable reluctance to face the voters over the summer, but had been disinclined to try to overrule the relatively new leader,” the cable reads. “He claimed that Ignatieff had ‘made up his own mind’ on this brinkmanship approach without much, or perhaps any, internal consultations.”
Maintaining caucus confidentiality has long been a challenge for Liberal Party leaders, a task that now falls to Mr. Rae.
Liberals laid bare infighting and war-chest woes to U.S. diplomats: WikiLeaks - The Globe and Mail
Now recently released diplomatic cables show that even the party’s top brass – including current Interim Leader Bob Rae – were spilling party and caucus secrets to the U.S. Embassy.
A handful of diplomatic cables released over the past week by Wikileaks show the U.S. government isn’t hurting for sources when it comes time to pen updates to Washington on the latest in Liberal politics.
One June 16, 2009 cable – titled “Liberals begin to blink?” – describes a conversation that day between a counsellor at the embassy and Mr. Rae, then the party’s foreign affairs critic. According to the note, Mr. Rae was indicating Liberal MPs were not behind then-leader Michael Ignatieff’s recent election sabre-rattling.
Mr. Rae “admitted that, behind closed doors, the caucus had considerable reluctance to face the voters over the summer, but had been disinclined to try to overrule the relatively new leader,” the cable reads. “He claimed that Ignatieff had ‘made up his own mind’ on this brinkmanship approach without much, or perhaps any, internal consultations.”
Maintaining caucus confidentiality has long been a challenge for Liberal Party leaders, a task that now falls to Mr. Rae.
Liberals laid bare infighting and war-chest woes to U.S. diplomats: WikiLeaks - The Globe and Mail
