Peston Manning: wrong but not stupid

Preston Manning argues that by being honest and transparent vis-a-vis his government's positions on trade relations with China and controlling greenhouse gas emissions, Harper enhanced Canada's international reputation: "surely the modesty, honesty and transparency he demonstrated on these issues is preferable to policies tainted by hypocrisy if Canada truly aspires to be a “moral beacon” on the global stage." Now while I don't mean compare Harper's putative contributions to Canada's reputation with Chretien's -- the primary stalking horse of Manning's article -- I do wish to criticize the claim that being honest/transparent about one's policies is always morally preferable to being dishonest/ opaque about them. One can morally evaluate both the contents of a government's policies and their degree of transparency. In the ideal case, a government will both have morally admirable policies and will be honest about them. But in some circumstances, admirable policies can be successfully implemented only if the government is dishonest about them. And it is, arguably, better to be dishonest about admirable policies than honest about shameful policies. As a result, the Harper government's honesty about their unwillingness to sacrifice trade for human rights in China and economic growth to save the environment count as instances of only the third (of four) best combination of policy transparency and content. And their dishonesty about their (and their predecessor government's) Afghan prisoner transfer policy counts as an instance of the worst combination of the two.