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Published: September 24, 2008 5:00 AMThat didn’t take long.
As we suggested in September 2007, when the federal Conservatives appointed Mayor Sharon Smith as the government liaison for the riding, effectively backdooring NDP MP Nathan Cullen, the unfortunate nude photos stolen from her home computer would surface yet again.
Since the start of the election, national and provincial media attention has been drawn not to Smith’s candidacy for the federal Conservatives, not to the planks in her platform, but to the photos.
The left-wing blogosphere was quick to remember the 2003 photos and pounce on it. Shortly thereafter, came the national news media hoping they had a scandal story.
But as we said in that 2007 editorial, the pictures are a moot point and the Conservatives went into this federal election with their eyes wide open.
“We are certain that in the Bulkley Valley-Stikine Conservative war room leading up to Smith’s confirmation as their candidate, the nude photo subject was discussed and a strategy to combat it developed,” Houston Today stated in 2007.
In the other camps, it is equally certain they have discussed it and developed a strategy to exploit it.
Undoubtedly, in the next federal election, no candidate will be stupid enough to directly refer to the photo, but one can be assured that the backroom muckrakers will attempt to use the photos against Smith.
But as Smith said in 2003, it’s not a political issue.
“There is nothing wrong with what I have done. It is not immoral; it is not unethical; it is not illegal; and it has nothing to do with my position of mayor and capability of being a leader of this community,” she told Houston Today.
Whether one agrees with Smith or not over the private ethics or morality, is a moot point.
As far as this newspaper is concerned, the most unethical and immoral thing is to drag up the photo to promote a political agenda.”
To their individual credits, Cullen, Taylor, Arendt, Morhart have made no mention of the photos... so far.
And while this was the titillating national media circus, everyone knew it was coming.
Now that it is out of the way, we hope we can get back to the issues at hand. Northwest B.C. has much more important problems to deal with than nude photos.
