Loyalty test fail

Not surprisingly, Jane Taber can't avoid forcing "he said, she said"-style balance into a post which otherwise features a nice selection of columnists slamming Tony Clement. But it's worth noting how far she has to reach in order to find anybody on Clement's side:

Mr. Clement, however, has his defenders. The Prime Minister’s Office circulated talking points after his testimony...

The memo repeated some of Mr. Clement’s points to the committee...

Mr. Clement and the PMO argue that their new voluntary survey – the National Household Survey, which is now available online – will ask questions “identical to the questions that would be asked in the mandatory long-term census.”

Which leads one to wonder why the government is so intent on emphasizing the “intrusive nature” of the census questions. For now, Mr. Clement is not commenting.

Of course, it's most certainly not to Taber's credit that she's willing to provide the PMO which handed Clement his orders and talking points with the opportunity to review his performance. But it speaks volumes that the Cons have sunk to the point where Taber apparently can't find anybody outside Harper's immediate control to even try to defend what the Cons are doing.