puffin gagged! or - something!

I have to say that, like just about everyone else who was covering the flight of the puffin yesterday, I found the official unofficial explanation that it was all the fault of a still unnamed web designer – described in various accounts as “overactive” and “overzealous” – to be a little hard to swallow. Especially since the War Room kids really were, as Graham Richardson noted on CTV News yesterday afternoon, “bragging” about the site.

Well, that was fast.

Apparently not only are the daily briefings down for the count – okay, being “pulled back” as per Canadian Press, but we know what that means – but remember that totally not at all negative site that the Tories leaked to the Sun and CanWest earlier? The one with the puffin flying over Dion’s head and, in the immortal words of Julie Van Dusen this morning, “doing something you don’t want puffins to do”?

Well, it’s not doing that anymore. Unfortunately, it did it just long enough to inspire a Liberal press release – complete with screenshot of the original site  – condemning the Conservatives for having “crossed the line”: