Should Prime Minister Stephen Harper resign over the Senate scandal? I don't think so but as a hockey player might say of an ugly win, "We'll take it."
If the unrelenting media frenzy over expense fudging by Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy ends up earning the PM a game misconduct, we'll take it, even though it's a phantom call by media referees who have let them play this way for years.
They said nothing when Harper pummelled government tax revenues by dropping Canada's corporate taxes annually for seven years.
They looked the other way when Harper sent goons off the bench to straighten out Air Canada and other union workers.
And they swallowed their whistles as the PM changed Canada from a peacekeeping nation to a shrill yes man to U.S. foreign policy.
And now they might kick him out of the game for an incidental Senate expense infraction? That's like kicking Boston Bruins cheap shot artist Brad Marchand out of the game for holding after you've ignored his punching Daniel Sedin in the face five times right in front of you.
Of course, Mr. Harper, like previous prime ministers, knew that Senate expense accounts were routinely padded. Like others, he looked the other way - until Duffy got caught claiming his main residence was in Prince Edward Island when every islander knew he hadn't been within 500 miles of Green Gables for years.
But increasingly, Canada's media gets so excited about blood in the water that they lose all sense of proportion.
A relatively unimportant last straw becomes a media feeding frenzy that goes completely over the top: Gordon Campbell and the HST, Glen Clark and the sundeck, Mike Harcourt and bingo-gate, Dave Barrett and well, because he did too much.
To a certain degree, this American style of media mauling directed at Harper is poetic justice. Our PM has never met an American practice he didn't want to copy so it's somewhat satisfying to see him hoist by his own petard.
But should Prime Minister Harper be forced from office over the Senate scandal? No. Should we throw him out of office for innumerable policies that hurt Canada? Yes.
If Stephen Harper loses his job over the Senate scandal, it would be a cheap makeup call, but we would take it.
