Wellington outsteams Ottawa

You will have to forgive the readers of the Wellington Times if they are a little blasé about the Bob Dechert, flirtatious—but-innocent emails affair.

Why? Well, if you haven’t read the Pivot- Hooker missives, you’ve missed material one heck of a lot steamier than the emails sent to a female employee of the Chinese news agency by Dechert, which landed him deep water with opposition MPs and commentators earlier this month. By comparison, Mr. Dechert’s correspondence barely drags itself across the eroticism threshold. Dechert sent Rong-Shi a note that said “You are so beautiful. I really like the picture of you by the water with your cheeks puffed. That look is so cute. I love it when you do that. Now, I miss you even more Signed, Bob Dechert M.P.” Mr. Dechert, who is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, maintains that the friendship was innocent. That wasn’t the way Ms. Rong-Shi’s husband saw it: he hacked into and distributed emails from her account, and accused her of conducting a love affair. For her troubles, Ms. Rong-Shi was hauled back to China for reassignment, and Mrs. Dechert isn’t talking. An informal CBC poll lists reponses running about 2:1 in favour of him resigning.

But how do you really expect a guy who has to sit around all week being told what to do by Stephen Harper to find some amusement? Do you seriously expect him to just go and play Sudoku on his computer? Or sit around pulling the wings off flies? If he had doodled disrespectful cartoons of the boss during some caucus meeting, the morality police might have stayed home, but his head would have been on a platter the next morning. Flirtation is an obvious outlet.

But if you’re going to spend your time writing florid letters, you can take your lead from Jake Hooker and Elsie Pivot. Have you looked at what they’ve been up to lately?

In the September 14 issue, for example, Elsie writes; “Oh Jake, of course you have a past! I wouldn’t expect that such a manly man would live like a monk just waiting for Destiny to explode in our solitary lives like fireworks on Victoria Day….And besides, how could you be such a wise sage of life, a mount of wisdom, if you haven’t tasted the dregs of experience? Oh no, my Chic of Araby, I trust you with my love….’’

To which Jake replies:

“O Elsie! You are the guiding’ star in my expandin’ firmament, yet my unworthy mind harbours such roilin’, overheated trash…Is there any chance at all we can regain those funky thrills and insights. Or has my overweanin’ ardour blown my cover?”

Come to think of it, if anyone is really shocked over Dechert-grade material, then the publisher of the Wellington Times might as well clothe himself in the robes of a crusading figure for freedom of expression, carrying the torch borne by the publishers of Fanny Hill, Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

You might, just for a moment, have thought things would be the other way round: the small town is shocked at innocent intimacies, the body politic yawns at anything less than a smoking gun. Instead, the small town yawns at steamy letters (even when perhaps loosely drawn from local characters), and the public is incensed at the impropriety of mildly titillating emails.

The trouble for Mr. Dechert is that his misjudgment means he might just have taken himself out of the running for promotion into the cabinet, however innocent the affair. And for that, a certain proportion of Canadian maledom will want to cheer him on, but instead will excoriate him for not making a better showing on behalf of all Neanderthal alpha males while he had the chance. If you are going to fail a morality test and forfeit your career, they would think—I’m not sure that’s the right verb —choose a stunning biker chick with deep decolletage, and leave a raft of cabinet documents over at her place, à la Maxime Bernier; or a hostess at the Chez Paree nightclub in Montreal who might be a spy from East Germany, à la Pierre Sevigny and George Hees. But don’t wimp out and settle for tepid emails. Aren’t there any real men in Harperland? If only some knuckleheaded, 50- something year old would just surrender to his inner hormones and take one for the team, Stephen Harper might win a second majority built on the backs of red-blooded males. I’m not making any representations about the intelligence of the male of the species here.

The fact is that we don’t seem to do sex scandals very well in Ontario. A few years ago, a member of Bob Rae’s cabinet resigned after being overheard offering a bartender a goverment job in exchange for, well, you know. The bargain was never consummated and the former minister never charged. Jack Layton attained sainthood despite having been found in a massage parlour. The Dechert scandal is even punier. What we deserve is a full-blown, American sized scandal, like ethics king Elliot Spitzer’s brazen use of a high-priced prostitution service while Governor of New York.

For my part, I say leave Bob Dechert alone. His flirtatious-but-innocent missives don’t even match the standard of eroticism set by the Wellington Times. And by the way, I know of several members of the Wellington Open Floor who would be happy to help him, for a fee, bring his emails up to Hooker-Pivot levels.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available at www.grubstreet.ca.