The information, offered on the condition that the PMO not be identified as the source, backfired on the increasingly desperate Conservatives, as you will see below. The Harper cabal's biggest miscalculation, it seems, is that it didn't count on a quality virtually non-existent within its own ranks, personal and professional integrity:
As usual, our national embarrassment, Harper, refused to answer questions about this tawdry affair while at The G8.
BTW, if you don't think that sheer moral bankruptcy is sufficient explanation for recent Tory ineptitude in its dirty tricks deployment, The Star's Susan Delacourt has an alternative view.