*

Oh, but surely it matters that Mulroney is one of Harper’s “predecessors”, in the sense that both Mulroney’s party and Harper’s have the letter “C” and the colour blue in their logos. And it would certainly be fair to ascribe some form of institutional responsibility to the party leader, except that how many times over the past four years have we been told by Liberals everywhere, loudly and clearly and with great insistence, that “this new party is not the PC Party of old”? How many times did Harper’s opponents go purple in the face screaming about how the old PC Party was gone forever, and this new party was actually the hostile execution of the Mulroneyite old guard at the hands of the populist neo-Reform movement? How many times did Joe Clark - one of Mulroney’s successors, and himself held up as proof by the Liberals that the old PC Party was kaput - insist that “this new party is not my party”? Does this ring any bells, folks? Yes? Well then I take it that if any good comes from clearing the air on this Mulroney mess, then we can at least look forward to putting that old guff to rest once and for all.