Unfortunately, I agree with David Matas – this is an mundane issue about board politics and an internecine debate within Rights & Democracy that also happens to align with the ideological thinking of many commentators.

In short, why let the facts, or the absence of facts, get in the way of a good story. Any objective writer would see that there is no story here.

There is zero proof to back up the allegation that the Harper government has stacked the board of R&D with right-wing zealots bent on destroying its reputation. Given that the Harper government has appointed ALL of the current board’s members and its previous and current president, one would have to conclude that the board was ALREADY stacked with Harper appointees.

Yet, given the logic of blind-rage ideology, we have the innocent and rights loving Harper appointees battling the evil Israel-loving appointees in a hockey-game from hell.

Since the simplest solution is often the best, then it is more likely that this is a dispute between members of the board and staff and nothing more. Matas’ argument that the new board was concerned about financial oversight makes sense given that the previous president had a large discretionary fund that he could use willy-nilly.

In order to make a objective assessment of the events at Rights&Democracy, the pubic needs to see the meeting minutes from the board of directors from the past two years. Although meeting minutes are rarely a full, word by word record of a meeting, they would provide some indication of the evolution of the board.