Not even trying

It seems so long ago that Stephen Harper's Cons could be bothered to come up with relatively creative (if implausible) excuses when they were caught doing something wrong. But it looks like they've now given up the attempt in favour of simple form responses.

Here's two separate ministerial responses to the Star's investigation into Con travel expenses:

Late Friday, (Gary Lunn's) spokesperson Bernadette Murphy issued this response: "Minister Lunn travels for government business, and taxpayers did not and do not pay for him to attend political events."...

"Minister Hearn travels for government business, and taxpayers did not pay for him to attend political events," Outhouse said.

Which only makes this part all the more comical:

Prentice's staff were asked about several of his trips and said Friday they are working on their response.

Who wants to wager as to what Prentice travels for, and whether taxpayers paid for him to attend political events?

Meanwhile, lest anybody think that's the only example of stock responses being provided to the exclusion of any useful information, let's note that the Cons are once again pulling out the "clerical error" excuse for reports which showed public money being improperly spent.

While the Cons may once again be refusing to actually answer for what they've done, though, neither that fact nor the use of public money for partisan purposes deserves to go unchallenged. And based on their track record so far, no amount of scripted messaging should be able to prevent the Cons from facing the consequences of their actions.