Asides

The only reaction I had to Mike Duffy's "Watch this! The sky is falling!" video moment today was to laugh -- Duffy and the Harper Conservatives apparently think that it is utterly amazing to see a politician actually trying to understand and respond to a reporter's incoherent question, rather than just blowing the reporter off and dishing out talking points.
I don't have a post here, really, just a few asides. First, here's a funny comment from the comments on the CBC website:

. . . I would ask Mike Duffy: 'If you were a credible, non-partisan journalist today, how would your TV programme be different?'

Interesting to see that National Post's Don Martin thinks the incident tells us more about Harper than about Dion:

this is a damning insight into how desperate the Conservatives have become in their battle to belittle a Liberal leader they never dreamed could pose a threat to their government . . . To use his first spontaneous media appearance of the campaign to declare Mr. Dion the most unworthy of the two candidates for prime minister based on a minute of misunderstanding is not the most flattering reaction for the prime minister.
In the end the incident they hoped to use to define Mr. Dion as a confused ditherer may actually provide more telling insight into the character of Stephen Harper.

Andrew Potter says the Tory glee won't play well in Quebec:

And as for the Tory spindorks, have their brains completely fallen out? How on earth do they think this is going to play in Quebec? Quebecers don’t much like Dion, but to have a bunch of rubes mocking the man for his poor grasp of English — yeah, they’re going to love that in Repentigny. They’ll be slapping their thighs in the Gaspe.
Honest to god.

And I think this is why Dion couldn't wrap his head around the question -- if he had been prime minister for the last two years, he wouldn't have had to come up with any emergency 30 day plan -- because he would have handled the economy differently for the last two years and it would be stronger today than it is under Harper. As the Toronto Star story notes, in an aside to an aide during the interview, Dion said:

"Yes but if I would have been prime minister two years ago, I would have had an agenda"