Tank By Tuesday!! (new CPC slogan)

If that's not the new slogan, it sure appears to be their new modus operandi. I am starting to put things together here. Seems the SHITs* have lost all the non-Harper backroom assets normally at their disposal.

Michael Fortier and Peter MacKay (the latter of which is a complete dumb-ass anyway) are both fighting tooth-and-nail just for their own ridings. Fortier also has the added burden of covering for many Montreal area candidates' media requests (not entirely surprising, given that some can't even answer a simple question in french). Fortier was key to the strategy behind the 2006 campaign, so that's one major brain that isn't nearly as available to the national campaign as they would surely like.

Back in March, Peevey Stevie's braintrust, Ian Brodie became a liability he could no longer be seen talking to - particularly now that the candidacy he was attempting to sandbag is now clearly heading for the White House. So that's a second "brains behind the operation" gone.

Then they lost number 3 in week one of the campaign when Ryan Sparrow had to be given the boot over Puffin-Poop Peccadillo and his public dumping on the father of a Canadian soldier that had been killed in action in Afghanistan.

So his behind-the-scenes team was already bleeding out profusely by the time he had to dismiss his longtime aide, Owen Lippert, who dutifully fell on his sword over the John Howard speech plagiarism scandal last week.

With his cupboard bare, Harper now has to rely on his own tin ear to lurch along through the rest of the campaign. And all he can do is revel in his own perceived brilliance, and speak over the heads of these silly Canadian voters, directly to his true constituents: the Neo-Con masters such as Karl Rove.

So spread the word: the new mantra is for the Conservatives is "TBT", or

"Tank By Tuesday"

Can they do it? Tune in this time next week to find out!

- 30 -

(Tip 'o the Hat to Cyberwanderer for that last link.)

*For the uninitiated: that's the Secret Harper Imitation Tories.

I am so sorry for my sorry-ass Canadian government

(note: this has been cross-posted from my diary on Dailykos)

Dear Americans,

You deserve much better from your northern neighbor. Please accept my sincere apology for my stupid government (I've taken to calling them the SSHITs). As the Globe & Mail has very recently made clear, our Prime Minister's Chief of Staff can't be trusted not to blab confidential information to the media from our allies - or at least the Democratic ones.

I don't blame you if you are upset. If the tables were turned, surely Canadians would be up in arms at any whiff of American influence on our political process.

Of course, it doesn't help when our idiot newsroom at CTV can't keep the facts straight:

The Canadian Press cited an unnamed source last night as saying that several people overheard the remark.

The news agency quoted that source as saying that Mr. Brodie said that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign called and was "telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt."

The story was followed by CTV's Washington bureau chief, Tom Clark, who reported that the Obama campaign, not the Clinton's, had reassured Canadian diplomats.

Mr. Clark cited unnamed Canadian sources in his initial report.

There was no explanation last night for why Mr. Brodie was said to have referred to the Clinton campaign but the news report was about the Obama campaign. Robert Hurst, president of CTV News, declined to comment.

The Prime Minister's communications director, Sandra Buckler, has said that Mr. Brodie "does not recall" discussing the issue.

(By the way, both CTV and the Globe and Mail are owned by these people, although under separate editorial control.) Given the results in Ohio and Texas, and the way Clinton made political hay with the story to her advantage, you must all be pretty damn livid right now (I know I am - for multiple reasons).

So please accept my apologies, but also understand that the current government is very moronically neo-con in their thinking, and not at all aligned with the majority of Canadians.

As for the source of the leak, Ian Brodie, here's what one magazine journalist observed in an article published just two months ago:

(Ian Brodie is) 100% the single most influential figure in Harper's inner circle. There are others who have as much impact on policy, or image-making, or managing critical files, or on keeping an eye on the next election. But nobody else brings all those concerns together as Brodie does.

...

He has more direct daily access to Harper than any other senior official, typically starting when he and top bureaucrat Kevin Lynch deliver a morning briefing to the Prime Minister at about 9 a.m

Again, my sincere and humble apologies. We will try very hard to rectify the situation, but first our opposition Liberals will need to find a backbone.

Please bear with us; the outrage over this particular fiasco is by no means ready to peter out on this side of the border. We must have hope.

With Respect,
Scott in Montreal