It's not the normal beginning of the day to have a thought for our Prime Minister's feelings. I am far from really disliking the guy but there is definitely a manufactured layer of neutrality between me and him. I blame him. I am not sure who he blames. Yet when I hear stuff like this it does make you wonder what it is like in his particular tower, ivory or not, when he reads this in the paper:

One of Mr. Harper's longest-serving aides, the intensely loyal Ms. Stewart-Olsen functioned as a gatekeeper for her boss for many years as other staff came and left. "Stephen is not the easiest guy to work for. He takes a lot of handling sometimes. And Carolyn, she was good at that," said University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Conservative campaign adviser. Ms. Stewart-Olsen, a former emergency room nurse, is the second senior communications staffer in recent days to prepare their exit from the Prime Minister's Office.

What kills me is that Flanagan is supposed to have been one of Harper's mentors and closest confidants at one time. Could you imagine Mitchell Sharp saying that a Liberal PM took "a lot of handing"? There is a tang of disloyalty to Flanagan sometimes which seems somewhat intentional. I used to think that discretion was the hallmark of something or other.