It's an epidemic, I tells ya!

Regular commenter Kelseigh brings the following gem to our attention:

Canada’s Minister of State for Status of Women Helena Guergis isn’t the only Conservative MP who has staffers writing to media.

Ottawa-Orléans MP Royal Galipeau’s legislative assistant, Kyle Simunovic, was caught this past summer writing letters to the editor without identifying himself as a Conservative staff member. And while Simunovic’s letters weren’t a glowing review of his boss, they did attack a federal politician of a different political stripe.

In his letter to the Timmins Daily Press, where he was identified only as Kyle M. Simunovic of Timmins, Galipeau’s legislative assistant took aim at NDP MP Charlie Angus.

Simunovic took the Timmins-James Bay representative to task for his “Canada flag fit – call it maple leaf 2.0” in which Angus “whined and complained” yet again about Canada’s flag pins manufactured in China.

A reader with a sharp eye quickly responded to the letter, noting Simunovic is on Galipeau’s staff.

“Simunovic is on the payroll for the Conservative Party of Canada and sent a letter to discredit a member of parliament and worse, he obviously attempted to mislead residents of Timmins by passing himself off as an ‘average citizen,’” Mike Peever of Iroquois Falls wrote.

While Simunovic’s ties didn’t go unnoticed in the Timmins Daily Press, the same letter ran on TimminsToday.com with no mention of his Conservative affiliation.

We all await the similar, surreptitious primping of Conservative MP John Baird by one of his anonymous underlings, during which Baird will be described as a principled man, a strong man, resolute, with a firm chin, sparkling eyes, golden tan ... buff ... chiseled ...

Sorry, where was I going with this?