BUTTS ACCEPTING PENANCE FOR SINS UNCOMMITTED

  Rex Murphy: But of this we can be certain. Mr. Butts did not resign to make matters worse, to sharpen focus on the drama, to further darken its already bleak overcloud.

  He must have chosen to do so because there was some element, more explosive, more turbulent, and more ominous for his friend and prime minister yet to come. Yet to come, and which Mr. Butts’

 pre-emptive sacrifice offered some hope of either preventing, deflecting or deflating.

    Mr. Butts’ leave-taking is all the more remarkable, too, because, as so many have noted, it was replete with declarations, unqualified and trenchant, that neither he nor anyone in the PMO “pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould.” He emphatically denies all fault. And he should — as long as J W-R’s silence extends itself and no factual contradiction emerges — be taken at his word. But why then leave? This is accepting penance for sins uncommitted, unfamiliar both in liturgy and life.