Bob Dechert exchanged amorous emails and messages with Shi Rong.  So how is that anybody’s business but theirs?  He’s married, she’s married.  She’s a correspondent for China’s Xhinhua News Agency, he’s parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

Dare I mention that Mr. Baird, and his parliamentary secretary are both members of the Conservative government that keeps going on about family values.  There’s also the minor detail that Xinhua is widely regarded as a common front for Chinese intelligence operations.  it’s not like Dechert might have access to any sensitive material.  It’s not like he works for the Foreign Affairs Minister…. oh yeah.  Oops.

Maybe that’s what happened.  Maybe he took a different meaning from the term “Foreign Affairs”.  Sorry.  I know that was low hanging fruit, but I couldn’t resist.

He insists it was just “flirtatious”.  She was planning to divorce her husband to be with Bob “Sexy Text” Dechert.  Her husband apparently wasn’t too pleased about how things were shaping up and started sending messages from her account.  No word on how Dechert’s wife Ruth Clark feels about it, but probably it’s safe to say she’s not pleased either.

All of which sets the stage for my point.  If it was a Liberal carrying on like this, Harper would have been demanding his resignation from the moment the story broke.  He would have been held up as an example of all that is wrong with liberal values.  He would have represented the disdain Liberals have for “Family Values”.  But Mr. “Sexy Text” Dechert isn’t a Liberal, he’s a Conservative.  A well connected,  back-room mover and important to the party Conservative.  The PM has yet to demand his resignation.

Like the title says, “It may be a double standard… but at least it’s a standard.  Maybe next elections, we can have less “Family Values” rhetoric.  It might give the Conservatives a chance to tell us how they’re going to create actual jobs.  Ones that pay actual living wages to ALL levels of a business, not just the the tax dodging executives.  But hey, that’s a post for another day.

In the meantime, I now have to explain to my teenager that I really don’t want her practicing Conservative style family values.

Cheers, Winston