The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that it was pretty clear what was going on at the Commons ethics committee: Liberal MPs, or most of them, wanted nothing more than to get the SNC-Lavalin affair off the front pages. The Globe's Campbell Clark writes that they did not want to argue their side, or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's disagreements with the conclusions of the Ethics Commissioner. They were there to shut it down. If the Liberals wanted to argue Mr. Trudeau's case -- notably, that the PM was motivated by public concerns such as supporting jobs, not to feather his own bed -- they could have questioned the Ethics Commissioner on his findings, and debated the matter in committee. You would think that would be important: Mr. Trudeau keeps saying he had the right intentions. But no, the Liberals did not want that noise. They were governed by a political law about news cycles, and the notion that the longer your scandal stays in them, the worse it is for you. They do not want more questions, so five Liberal MPs voted against the Ethics Commissioner appearing before the ethics committee. Of course, the Liberals were probably right that having Mr. Dion testify would have been a political mess.