Is wallowing in the mud the Conservative lifestyle, or just a tactic?

First we have a tendentious claim that Michael Ignatieff improperly voted in foreign elections. This non-story was broken yesterday by CPC shill Brian Lilley, given little insect legs by David Akin, and finally squashed without ceremony earlier this morning.

The facts:

• Iggy voted in UK elections, as any resident of over six months is entitled to do.

• He has never voted in an American election: strictly illegal.

The sleazy attack on his wife last week was bad enough: now here’s a further attempt to suggest he’s not a real Canadian. Way to go, you “liberal media” hacks, you.

Moving on, it appears that the Harper Government™ seriously misled Parliament and diverted funds intended for the G8 to projects in Tony Clements’ riding. This may be illegal, says the Auditor-General.

I would think so. “Fraud by conversion” springs to mind. Let’s have those legal opinions asap.

And then there’s that wallower extraordinaire, Senator Pamela Wallin. Squatting on a CBC panel on The Current this morning, this former member of the “liberal media” attacked the reputation of Peter Milliken, until recently the Speaker of the House of Commons.

She claimed the “Liberal Speaker” was simply ensuring his legacy with his contempt rulings against the Cons.

This is far more than a partisan throwaway line, folks. Wallin is a sitting member of the Upper House. Her comments are in fact a serious assault on our Parliamentary traditions, already badly eroded by the Harper Government™.

This unelected Senator is attacking the reputation of a person made Speaker by the entire House of Commons. Once taking his place in the Speaker’s Chair, he is assumed to be impartial: otherwise, the House of Commons may remove him. But this is strictly a Commons matter and a Senator has absolutely no business interfering in Commons affairs.

Meanwhile, the Bruce Carson affair steams on:

“Any investigator in my 33-years’ experience, nobody would have recommended to keep that guy. Nobody,” former CSIS intelligence officer Michael Juneau-Katsuya said about Carson being green-lighted for a secret-level security clearance.

Cons and ex-cons. Oh my. And we have weeks to go yet.

UPDATE: What the G8 money funded. For those who are buying into John Baird’s desperate response, some of these items are pretty hard to explain away:

» $274,000 on public toilets 20 kilometres from the summit site.

» $100,000 on a gazebo an hour’s drive away.

» $1.1-million for sidewalk and tree upgrades 100 kilometres away.

» $194,000 for a park 100 kilometres away.

» $745,000 on downtown improvements for three towns nearly 70 kilometres away.

Baird’s intervention raises a disturbing question. How would he have seen a final draft of the report? The AG would never have permitted it.

For the Conservatives to call for the immediate release of the final report is simply a ploy: they know full well that the report may only be released while Parliament is sitting, as the AG herself makes perfectly plain in a statement issued today.

UPPERDATE: The Current clip. Wallin’s remarks referenced above begin at @18:09.