The Two Most Well Massaged Words In The English Language: Conservative MAJORITY.

I've got to hand it to this Prime Minister. The man is one clever operator. Just look at the EKOS poll done for the CBC which gives the Conservatives a fourteen point lead -- makes me wonder if the PM honed his technique in Stockholm...

I hope Stephen Harper is a fish lover. After all, no one in memory has ever been better at serving up red herrings to a gullible public.

A case in point (from The Star):

OTTAWA–The Conservative government was accused of orchestrating an "extraordinary" cover-up after public hearings into alleged torture of Afghan detainees resumed briefly Wednesday.

Justice department lawyers have moved to block the probe into complaints about military police conduct in Afghanistan by throwing a national security blanket over the inquiry.

"It is extraordinary to me that there has been such a determination on the part of the government to cover up evidence and shut down witnesses and to prevent people from coming forward who would have something to say," Liberal MP Bob Rae told reporters Wednesday.

Rae (Toronto Centre) said there are serious allegations of torture at Afghan prisons and questions surrounding circumstances in which prisoners were transferred from Canadian to Afghan control.

"I don't believe that it is in the national interest for Canada to be covering up this information," he said.

Peter Tinsley, the military police complaints commissioner, postponed the hearings for a week while lawyers squabble over the breadth of the investigation into what military police in Kandahar knew about the possible abuse of prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities.

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It is me or is it passing strange that the commissioner's mandate is not being renewed. Surely, it's also a coincidence that Tinsley will not be remaining as a member, even though he allegedly requested it himself. Again, must simply be "happenstance"...

I don't know about you but I find national security to be a highly convenient cloak. This strikes me as painting with overly broad strokes.

On to the next gem.

Conservative surrogates have been quite busy lately. This is how the CBC reported the latest salvo against a longstanding CPC target:

Two writers appeared before the justice committee on Monday, repeating their call for a repeal of a controversial section of the Human Rights Act, and asking for a probe into the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn are also calling for the elimination of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which allows the commission to investigate allegations of hate speech.

"I think a very practical, doable thing for this committee and for Parliament would be to repeal Section 13 of the Human Rights Act altogether, to leave any hate speech prosecutions to the Criminal Code with its proper checks and balances, and frankly, to bring in a forensic audit to the Human Rights Commission to examine the allegations that I have made," Levant told the commission.

Levant is alleging that employees of the commission belong to neo-Nazi organizations, an accusation he made in July in a National Post column.

Some committee members, like New Democrat MP Joe Comartin, seemed incredulous at the accusation.

"I think I like everybody sitting at this table are at some disadvantage, Mr. Levant and Mr. Steyn, in terms of the accusations that you're making against members of the commission and their staff."

Levant offered to give MPs documents to back his accusations and come back to testify once they had read them.

Levant was subject of a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission under the act for reprinting the provocative Danish Muhammad cartoons in his magazine in 2006. He published the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the now defunct Western Standard, arguing that they were "the central fact in the largest news story of the month."

A complaint was launched by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Steyn for an article he wrote titled "The Future Belongs to Islam" and posted on the magazine's website in October 2006.

The article, an excerpt of a book authored by Steyn, talks about Islam being a threat to North American institutions and values. It used statistics to show higher birth rates plus immigration mean Muslims will outnumber followers of other religions in Western Europe.

Both complaints were eventually dismissed.

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This entire episode troubles me. I'm not a fan of hate speech. I want as many tools in the drawer as possible to deal with it. That is precisely why I do not agree with Levant and Steyn's approach.

Both of these files strike me as somewhat symptomatic of Conservative group think. I don't like that mindset or mentality. To my mind, what we're seeing is warning bells and caution flags in spades. Something to seriously think about...