Nice of them to give us their script

Conservative MPs have been given their marching orders and will be fanning out across the nation's talk radio shows and community forums with a detailed script of the Governments reaction to the prospect of being overthrown by an opposition coalition.

In an e-mail obtained by the Globe and Mail, Guy Giorno, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Chief of Staff, set out a strategy to shift public debate ahead of a potential confidence vote in the House of Commons next week.
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Mr. Giorno's message also includes very detailed scripts MPS are expected to follow while delivering radio interviews that include the following lines:

• We're not even two months removed from the last election, and a group of backroom politicians are going to pick who the Prime Minister is. Canadians didn't vote for this person. We don't even know who this person will be.
• Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.
• This is what bothers me the most. The Conservatives won the election. The Opposition keeps saying that the Conservatives have to respect the will of the voters that this is a minority and so on.
• …how about Liberals, NDP and Bloc respecting the will of the voters when they said "YOU LOSE".
• And what's this going to do to the economy. I'm sorry, I don't care how desperate the Liberals are — giving socialists (Jack Layton) and separatists (Gilles Duceppe) a veto over every decision in government — that is a recipe for total economic disaster.
• But how more phony could these guys be?
• I mean, I follow the news, virtually every single day you have Harper or Flaherty out there telegraphing exactly what they plan to do with the economy. And not once did you hear the Liberals, NDP or separatists talking about toppling the government in response.
• No — do you know what set this off. When Flaherty said he was going to take taxpayer-funded subsidies away from the opposition. Now there is a reason to try and overturn an election— because the Conservatives the audacity to say "Hey, it's a recession, maybe you should take your nose out of the trough."
• And I wish the media would be more clear on this point — the opposition aren't being singled out by this fact the Conservatives stand to lose the most money of all. The only difference is that Canadians are voluntarily giving money the Conservatives, so they don't need taxpayer handouts. The only reason the opposition would be hurt more is because nobody wants to donate to them. They should be putting their efforts towards fixing that problem.
• I don't want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy.

So, provided with this embarrassingly detailed outline of everything you can expect out of your Conservative MPs mouth for the next week your options include an amusing drinking game or an even more amusing prepared and engaged audience to this scripted mendacity.

These arguments are farcical at best and would probably fall flat regardless, but now we can all be prepared to counter them with the facts.