I have a fun game for you! It's called "Spot the talking points".
What you do, see, is read a whole bunch of barely-disguised conservative partisans desperately spinning a story about how Harper's conservatives are, essentially, a pack of complete assholes, and how that could completely change the election.
(Kind of like with Sarah Palin's rape kits.)
Then you figure out which talking points they were given to try to defuse the situation, and laugh as they fail. Over, and over, and over again. And then you figure out what it says about the spinners.
Case in point: one of 'em is that "this was just gallows humor, guys! It's funny! You just don't get the context!" Lots of variations on that. Now, any competent spin doctor or stand-up comedian would warn you away from this crap. They know that if you have to explain a joke it's not funny, and if you try to explain an offensive joke, it gets even worse.
But, you see, the people who put these talking points together, like the rest of the conservatives' war room (and, apparently, caucus) are giant jackasses. They think that inept mockery of suffering by the minister responsible is funny! They have no idea that the rest of us might disagree!
Thing is, gallows and off-color humor actually can be funny, but you have to be a) a damned good comedian to pull it off and b)NOT A MINISTER.
(There's lots more- I'll leave the rest to you folks.)
Don't get me wrong. Lots of people there understand that this is unacceptable; that there's a difference between a government minister and, say, a 4chan thread. But that just makes the spinners stand out that much more.
(Coming soon: figure out what McCain is actually talking about! For ages 10 and up.)
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