Watch the Liberals turn Harper’s campaign lemons into attack-ad lemonade

This story moved fast, even by the standards of modern election campaigns. First, multiple reports of university-age students getting barred from Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s rallies began to surface. Then, the Liberals slapped together a snappy little attack ad featuring one of the students in question, Awish Aslam, who had a picture of herself with Michael Ignatieff on her Facebook page. Then, the RCMP admitted it was basically acting as a bouncer for the Conservative party—creepy in its own right, but the RCMP has said it was taken to inappropriate levels (we’re sure they’ll make sure it stays quiet it won’t happen again). And finally, Harper apologized for the whole shebang.

All of this is part of the larger argument the press is having with itself (because Harper isn’t listening) over whether the Conservative leader and his team are control freaks in general or just totally anal-retentive about media access. We’re sure glad the press is arguing over whether Harper is taking enough questions from them, instead of pesky little things like the blank cheque we’re writing in Libya, the Liberal plan to screw cities, or any of the other important issues we won’t hear about this election.

• Another student barred from Conservative Party rally [Toronto Star]
• Harper and the press: matching bubbles [Maclean’s]