What Happens In The Bass Boat, Stays....

I think everyone was a bit surprised when we learned that Stephen Harper and Rob Ford are "fishing buddies". I think nobody is surprised in the least to learn the Prime Minister's Office immediately tried to hunt down the culprit who made the grave error of uploading a gathering, which apparently was for conservative ears only:

The fishing trip stories caught everyone by surprise.

And the video?

“We were surprised that someone would do that,” said one senior Conservative who attended.

“You would like to think that when people come to these events, they come with the best intentions and motives.”

Harper’s office apparently felt the same.

Calls were placed to organizers as soon as the video went up.

Guest lists were sought in a bid to find who had posted it to YouTube and by Thursday morning, it was down.

It is a bit disturbing that one of the minions didn't understand that there are two worlds: the one carefully crafted for public consumption and the REAL one. The latter is forever kept quiet; yes these men fished together, but Canadians don't need to know that, they need to think Harper is in his basement working the kinks out of Baba OReilly with his band or hand feeding a kitten during a break from the hockey book.

It is simply hilarious to realize that as soon as this video goes online the PMO starts demanding lists, starts tracking down the bad conservative, obviously puts pressure to have it pulled. Also obvious, once pulled, people then start to wonder why, which results in a sheepish reboot to avoid further INSIGHT into the minds of these Conservatives. Yes, the video is a bit unfortunate on the McGuinty front, but Flaherty has pumped Ford forever, the ties are clear and everyone with functioning fore brain knows that this government salivates at the notion of McGuinty going down. All this video really told Canadians, the obvious, along with a curious revelation that Ford and Harper have a "relationship". Pulling the video doesn't make this fact disappear, so again, the PMO paranoia and KGB style reaction is overkill by any measure.

I await the next PM appearance, wherein staff pat down attendees and confiscate any recording or listening devices. The sad part, I'm sure that thought has crossed a mind or two in this PMO.