Scandalously good reads

While the Ottawa press gallery obsesses over spin and strategy, find out what this is really all about from Gwyn, Fulford, and Anderson. Also read this piece by Peggy Wente on the mugging of Francois Beaudoin. And this by the Sun's Greg Weston. Will the various committees and commissions of inquiry look into that little affair? Finally, the National Post broaches the most disturbing question of all -- the involvement of the RCMP:

Ms. Fraser's discoveries do not directly implicate any single RCMP law enforcement action. But this casual use of a political slush fund to finance a Mountie social function raises questions about what favours were done in return. In the same year -- 1997 -- recall, the RCMP pepper-sprayed demonstrators at the APEC conference in Vancouver in an effort to help Ottawa protect Indonesia's dictator from embarrassment. Since then, the RCMP has raided the home of a former Business Development Bank of Canada chief who sought to call in an underperforming loan made to a hotel project in Jean Chretien's riding. And just last month, the RCMP ransacked the house of an Ottawa Citizen reporter suspected of violating Canada's Security of Information Act by reporting embarrassing information about the Maher Arar affair. Ms. Fraser's discovery puts these ostensibly independent operations in a new and sinister light.

UPDATE: Trudeaupia connects the dots even further.