SPIN THE SPIN...

Stephen Harper was no doubt the spotlight speaker at the Manning Institute for Democracy's fundraiser on Thursday.

The MID, often referred as a right-wing think tank, although you're more likely to find more 'tanking' than 'thinking' among that group, was eager to lap up the comedic stylings of Canada's greatest cheerleader, Ben Grimm.

Bernie Mac and Rodney Dangerfield were previously engaged.

The guy who has elevated government spending to a new artform, finding such frilly expenditures as focus groups, maximizing the 10-percenters for partisan fun-and-games, skilful vote buying in Quebec and select regions, pissing away the country's rainy-day fund, and breaking his own fixed election date law to 'freshen up' that disfunctional House he works in? Tearing a strip off our American neighbour for their right-wing governance and lifestyles? No doubt, people who have a house and a wife and a hammer and reckless grip on reality may have thought Stephen Harper's following comments had no irony at all.

“We are in a global recession principally — and we have to face this — because a lot of people on Wall Street, because of a lot of people in the private sector more generally — homeowners or consumers — pushed or bought into a very unconservative idea:That they could live beyond their means,” Mr. Harper said.

Yes, there certainly is plenty of evidence about free-spending governments that dates well before the current 'economic downturn'. Darn those liberal governments!