Cui bono, Mr Harper and Mr Brady?

I'm going to go out on a very stubby limb here and suggest this may be the only spot where you'll find a discussion of the similarities between the legal difficulties currently facing Mr Stephen Harper, PM, Canada and Mr Tom Brady, QB, New England. The similarity I have in mind is the old legal principle known as "cui bono?", or "who benefits?" When all else is indecisive, who stands or stood to gain from the alleged offence?

Tom Brady is one of the best football players ever; nobody would say Stephen Harper is one of the best polticians ever, and he's a hockey fan to boot. One common thing, though: these days, they're both men who are respected and feared rather than loved: giving a eulogy for a popular former colleague a year or so ago, Harper wryly admitted, "I can't even get my friends to like me".

Brady's legal troubles relate to the so-called Deflategate scandal. Allegedly, during last year's NFL playoffs, his team ensured that the balls he was throwing were inflated less than the league-prescribed minimum. Supposedly this makes them easier to throw and to catch: who knew? The NFL has imposed a 4-game ban on Brady, which he's appealing, and it seems as if the judge is leaning toward overturning or lessening the ban, on the basis that there's no evidence that Brady himself was involved.

What does "cui bono?" tell us here? The e-mails that have been entered into evidence show that the backroom staff at the New England Patriots, the guys who would actually have inflated the footballs, roundly despised Brady, so they had little direct stake in ensuring his success through underhand means. There's zero possibility that they would have done anything nefarious without the person most involved -- Brady -- knowing about it.  For Brady, on the other hand, nearing the end of his career, there was every incentive to do whatever it took to win another Super Bowl and cement his position as the greatest of all time.  Cui bono, then? Brady, obviously.

As for Stephen Harper, his troubles relate to the gaggle of lowlifes he saw fit to appoint to the Canadian Senate a few years ago:  specifically, Senator Mike Duffy, who stands accused of fiddling his expense account. Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, supposedly on his own initiative paid back Duffy's expenses of some $90,000 without telling Harper. The matter is before the courts at the moment: here's a summary of the latest developments.      

Who has benefited here? Duffy never has admitted any guilt; he took the 90 large under duress, and still finds himself before the court. Wright is out the cash and lost his job. There only seems to be one person on the positive side of the ledger here -- the PM -- and even he may wind up a loser if the evidence creeps any closer to him.

Right now it looks as though Tom Brady will be behind the line of scrimmage, his suspension annulled, when the Pats start their regular season next month. And Stephen Harper? The legal case is liable to wind on into 2016, but it's possible that the issue will weigh heavily with voters when election day rolls around in mid-October