Do you want some cheese with that whine?

A favorite moan from the Liberals in the past few years, unrelated with reality though it was, was that the NDP was concentrating on attacking them instead of the Conservatives.

It turns out that doing the opposite upsets them even more.

Jack Layton is ready to talk about all kinds of campaign issues, from affordable medication to smog, but one topic he didn't mention yesterday was Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion. "If you apply for a job, you don't normally talk about the other applicants," the New Democratic Party leader said yesterday, when asked why he had delivered an entire campaign-style speech without once saying the Liberal leader's name or bringing up his carbon tax.

This has unleashed a storm of peevish sarcasm, concern trolling and misrepresentation from representatives of the Liberal blogosphere. They seem to have taken to heart the famous Oscar Wilde bon mot that the only thing worse than being talked about - is not being talked about.

Get used to it folks, this is a campaign strategy that merely recognizes the cold hard political reality of the Liberal Party's slide into irrelevancy.