So with the fallout from Frank McKenna’s off-script adlibbing still settling over Ottawa like radioactive snow, it looks like the PM is about to bail on missile defence.

From an intellectual defensibility standpoint, this represents a real improvement for the PMO. Previously, their position had been a) that it was irresponsible, insane and reprehensible to suggest Canada shouldn’t participate in the scheme, but b) that despite (a), they hadn’t actually decided that we should.

(Essay topic: Was the contempt and derision that Martin’s cabinet heaped on Star Wars’ opponents an example of pre-decisional dissonance?)

Meanwhile, Paul Wells, as so often happens, has spun all of this into not one, but two skeins of comic gold:

If one bum McKenna scrum can actually get the trucks moving on time again in the capital, I say he will be wasted in Washington. Keep him in Ottawa, chain him to a post and force the poor sap to scrum six times a day. The resulting orgy of damage control will turn this into the most productive government in the nation’s history.

Government by gaffe. We always knew Martin would find a way to innovate.