I can't imagine why some people don't like the Tories...

"I said that she whored herself out for power, that's what she did," said Tony Abbott, a Conservative member of the Alberta legislature. That metaphor was echoed by Maurice Vellacott, Tory MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin.

"Some people prostitute themselves for different costs or different prices," he told the Regina Leader-Post. "She sold out for a cabinet position."

I don't recall anybody calling Scott Brison a whore for doing exactly the same thing.

My letter to the editor*:

It's not surprising many Canadian voters stay away from the Tories, even when angry about Liberal corruption. After all, Maurice Vellacott, Saskatchewan Tory MP, and Tony Abbott, Alberta Tory MPP, called Belinda Stronach a whore and a prostitute yesterday. Ignoring the hyperbole, why did nobody call Scott Brison such names for doing exactly the same thing? Sounds like a conservative old boys' club to me.

* I certainly could have gone into greater depth, and been more balanced, but my goal is to dissemminate widely the prostitute and whore quotes.

Would a man be called a whore?

...well, yes. When I was eight. Brian Mulroney said of Bryce Mackasey, a former Liberal cabinet minister and hanger-on, who was named an ambassador: "There is no whore, like an old whore."

Additionally, Paul Wells (Maclean's columnist) tells me the crowd he was with when Scott Brison defected made use of that word and worse.

But I guess it comes down to this: how fucking sad is it that we need to use that kind of insult to describe someone we disagree with on social or economic policy?

As I wrote back to Wells, "I hope I lose my naivete soon, it's distracting."