You can tell how panicked the Liberals are about their star candidate Andrew Leslie getting caught feeding at the public trough (see here) by the reaction from their Press Gallery shills.
Macleans’ Paul Wells attacks the head of the Conservative’s political operative division for daring to even talk about Leslie on the grounds that he alone decides who can be questioned:
I’ve asked Wells if he stayed on a cot while vacationing at Liberal MP Scott Brison’s house (see here), no response so far.
National Post’s Andrew Coyne is disgusted by the reaction from the Conservatives:
Yup, same guy who works for a newspaper that ran 100s of Senate and robocall stories.
Coyne’s coworker at Postmedia Stephen Maher goes along the same theme:
Getting leaks from Elections Canada as long as they are designed to damage Conservatives is cool, documents revealing a Liberal abusing an expense policy, not so much.
The Media Party are still good with Liberals being entitled to their entitlements – nothing has changed in Ottawa.
Update: Looks like many Generals have been sucking taxpayers dry and officials at the DND looked the other way:
National Defence has paid nearly $600K to move Generals within the same city or just outside the city limits over the past five years (see here)
BC Blue: One BC Conservative's view on it all... 
February 17, 2014 at 10:19 AM
How is it that the story of ‘ Gen Leslie $72,000s broken by Robert Fife a ‘conservative plot against the liberals’?
February 17, 2014 at 10:20 AM
Conservative smear!
February 17, 2014 at 11:28 AM
Fife et al work from both ends of the stick-it-to-them ram rod when it comes to Conservatives. One of the usual hacks outs the leak/breaks the story and it is then called a Conservative smear job. If a Conservative Minister gets quoted as calling it excessive it’s a smear. How is it a smear? It’s telling a fact, it is a lot of money for a short flit from one house to another on the same street. All politicians who are concerned about wasteful spending should be on the same page, policy needs changing. Methinks the General is a bit too sensitive for one who aspires to enter politics, he’s already in campaign mode, trying to get some political gain for being picked on. It all fits in with the present attacks on the government for supposedly cutting services.
February 17, 2014 at 11:54 AM
CP story at NP mentions CTV as the source. The comments which at NP perhaps are better ignored, run overwhelmingly if favour of Leslie and against the CPC. “smear”.The top comment from a CF veteran has 195 agreements.
Yet the same reporters wrote endlessly about a $16 glass of juice.
Its only wasted money if conservatives spend it.
February 17, 2014 at 12:15 PM
Why is what General Leslie slept on in Afghanistan relevant to this story I would ask PW.
What he felt entitled to spend to move what he sleeps on in Canada is the issue and the only issue.
It’s silly and immature, plain and simple to argue and imply a pity party re a cot sleeping arrangement and then ignore an obscene amount spent to move a few blocks by the same individual. Which is he, the simple man or the entitled man? A decent and inquisitive journalist would care and see this as a genuine story of interest.
Instead, these obvious liberal lap dogs turn into partisan attack dogs on anything or anyone conservative. Utter nonsense and all 3 comments sound very, very whiny and childish.
February 17, 2014 at 12:26 PM
Hmm it’s only illeagal, immoral or fattening when a Conservative does it.
After robo-call, hostgate, bodybags, Theresa’s starvation for her nation gleefully reported by CBC.
The NDP paying the biggest fine in Canadian history the ongoing silence about a couple of senior Liberals with very questionable charges against them.
Does anyone think a Conservative would have been treated differently?
Meanwhile Junior Trudeau the Canadian version of “mini-me” goes from howler to howler unnoticed by this bunch of fart catchers posing as Media.
JMO
February 17, 2014 at 12:41 PM
Get ready for a lot more of the Media Party covering for all potentially embarrassing issues with Justin and all of his very entitled Liberal pals. As has been said similarly here, if this was a Conservative senator who expensed that kind of bill for moving a few blocks, there’d be Media Party outrage in bold headlines.
As of yet we still have heard very little on (ex) Liberal senator Mac Harb, who was truly the most outrageous in his false expense claims, and owed more than the other three Conservative senators put together.
February 17, 2014 at 2:56 PM
It comes to mind that this is more than Duffy’s disputed expense claim and for a simple move around the corner. A few years ago Chow and Layton expended over $3000/day with no sustained reporting whatever.
February 17, 2014 at 1:34 PM
The media party outs itself again and again just like the Liberals with this being the latest example. When confronted with the evidence they claim victimhood. What more can I say.
February 17, 2014 at 3:29 PM
The Liberals started it, rolled with the accusations and now can wear it.
February 17, 2014 at 7:58 PM
Wells and Coyne “heroically” (hysterically) leap to save Justine any embarrassment from yet another instance of Liberal entitlement. These are the same horse’s a##’s that become unhinged when a Conservative gives his own money to another Conservative in order to pay back the taxpayer. So Turdo Jr groupies Wells and Coyne are mad as hell when Conservatives use their own money to pay back taxpayers, but are perfectly fine when Liberals abuse taxpayer money for their own sense of entitlement. These two are a couple of Juniors most ridiculous fans and colossal hypocrites. Imagine Coyne and Wells “outrage” if Leslie had been a Conservative candidate and not a fellow Liberal. Couple of A-Holes!!
February 18, 2014 at 7:55 AM
Let’s hope the Conservatives don’t let this story drag on, we need to hear from them what, why and how this happened under their watch. It’s a bit like the Senate spending problems. It appears the administrations in both were/are just rubber stamping claims and no one is paying attention to the expenses claimed until someone leaks it out to advance their own political agendas.
It’s about time the Conservatives stop allowing the media to light fires and not taking immediate action to put them out. We need to hear how this stuff happens and what they’re going to do about it.
We have a lot of respect for our military, those who serve in dangerous places, they deserve the best from their country but taking advantage of a program to the tune of many thousands of dollars borders on the obscene, this stuff doesn’t look good on them or us.
February 18, 2014 at 12:05 PM
Sorry but this has nothing to do with being under Harper’s watch, and it would have been the same under any government’s watch. I refer to the case of Duffy and Leslie and others where they followed spending rules and guidelines. An official audit of Duffy’s expenses confirmed he had not broken the law or rules and one of Leslie would do the same I am sure. Financial rules and regulations within the bureaucracy are implemented by bureaucrats who must follow them to the letter. There is no allowance for judgement or common sense; in fact any bureaucrat attempting to apply judgement or common sense would be in serious trouble. If the people, the government, the opposition parties or the media do not like the rules, then the government may change them. This is not done over night and in many cases not always easy to do due to existing collective agreements. One can argue that Duffy and Leslie used poor judgement in accepting that which they were entitled to, but that is a different matter and out of the control of the government.
For me the issue here is the blatant double standard. When the same thing is done by a Liberal anyone noticing or denouncing it is the problem, but should it be a Conservative then a feeding frenzy must occur.
February 18, 2014 at 12:16 PM
This practise of abuse has been allowed to continue under Harper’s administration
February 18, 2014 at 1:15 PM
I understand your point, but as I stated changing the financial rules within the bureaucracy is not easy and certainly not quick. These rules are not new, so I do find it strange that only now with the present government are they being brought to light. Again I am not referring to any who committed a crime by breaking them. I am far from being a blind partisan supporter of Harper and this government, since things such as refusing to honour campaign promises of which they are guilty stink to high heaven. Nor am I impressed with the refusal to revoke the Liberals’ Firearms Act in order to replace it with something that does not make any legal gun owner automatically guilty unless he or she can prove otherwise. I could go on and on but have made my point.
February 18, 2014 at 12:14 PM
[…] Also: See earlier post on how the Media Party came out swinging trying to protect Leslie here […]
February 18, 2014 at 12:20 PM
Latest to join in on this story as a CPC smear campsign is Andrew Cohen of Ottawa Citizen. He claims the origin came not fro a FOI request, but from a leak, but that remains unclear.
The problem being once the media party initiate these frenzies on expense accounts, and who else targeted Oda, Wallin, Duffy, they are difficult to contain. True that Leslie was nonpolitical when these expenses were accrued, but were he to campaign for the CPC, would the media party have left him alone? That is the big question here.
February 18, 2014 at 12:23 PM
That may be the most unethical column ever written by a journalism professor
February 18, 2014 at 2:52 PM
Wow,
Gen Leslie does not have exmilitary on his side.
Watch Solomon interview!!!!! with Pat Stogran (sp?) He said Leslie was a self serving General and appears he will be so too as a politician, he should not have taken the entitlements. And, that Leslie had political aspirations and didnt support him or the troops until he became Trudeaus guy