those ads (tm)

So I’ve been thinking about that Tom Flanagan op-ed off and on all day — yes, apparently, I’m far more susceptible to his eerie powers of remote journalistic thought control than I realized — and there’s something I just can’t quite figure out.

Well, a link to the Globe and Mail’s presentation thereof, at least. ITQ knows she’s not the only one out there who awaits his triweekly politicophilosophical stylings with almost immodestly eager anticipation. In today’s installment, he seems to be urging the Conservatives not to balk in the face of lilylivered nambypambering from the Liberals over their latest round of attack ads, which perform “a public service” by “repeating the words and recounting the deeds of political opponents” – which, he says, is the “most moderate and usually most effective genre of negative campaigning.”  (ITQ is now almost seriously entertaining the thought that the latest anti-Ignatieff ten percenter may actually be a craftily executed viral campaign to sell more copies of Blood and Belonging, but that’s another story.)

Well, I guess that answers that question: