THE CONSERVATIVE HIPSTERS

Now, people who know me know that I've pulled some dirty tricks in my time.

There are two rule to black ops in politics:

1. If you're going to hit someone and leave fingerprints, do it so they can't get up. That way, even if they wanted to retaliate they can't.

If you can't do that, then follow the second rule:

2. If you are unsure if your nasty operations will adhere to Rule #1, don't leave any fingerprints, digital or otherwise.

John Tory's crew failed on both accounts.

You may have noticed that the anonymous douchebags over at Tories4Truth raised quite a kerfuffle when they personally attacked Rueben Devlin and Bart Maves. Led by Adam Daifallah and this humble piece of cyberspace, many other bloggers weighed in on how low/stupid/irrelevant these attacks were.

It got so bad that Together4Ever and John Tory's staff at Queen's Park disavowed the smears. And that's where they really messed up.

As an independent blogger myself, I can say that if I had decided to do a hatchet job, no cries from an elected official or stern comments from the blogosphere would stop me from hitting my target until I achieved my event or objective - in this case a vote on whether there should be a leadership contest.

Since the initial outcry and the disapproving remarks from Tory (which people claim exist, although I've never seen them), Tories4Truth have not published one post. Not one. If you're trying to show you have no command-and-control function over a proxy doing a hit on your opponent, or you're even trying to even appear to have no connection to it at all, you may want to not have them follow your instructions.

John Tory says the posts are bad and the posts stop. Odd, that.

I'll just come right out and say it: while the specific identity of Tories4Truth will likely never be known (thanks, Google - you'll sell traffic info to the Chinese, but you won't reveal identities of jerkoffs hiding behind a blog), there is no doubt in my mind that that Tories4Truth blog is directly (not someone he knows casually, I mean it was part of Tory's overall offense strategy and a deliberate tactic) linked to Together4Tory and/or John Tory's rescue crew. They misjudged the furor the blog would cause and they got burned. Period.

Once again, it make me wonder whether these guys are ready for prime time (and not in the good SNL way, either). They are repeatedly showing that they are not. Man, I feel like a broken record.

But I will offer this - next time you want to hit someone (politically, of course), let me know.

I haven't been caught yet.