Lord Emperor Blackburn, Conservative MP for the riding of the Death Star whose resemblance to a certain Star Wars villain is well-documented, has become the second Conservative Cabinet Minister over the last couple weeks to lose their shit at an airport over something hilariously petty!

You see, apparently Jean-Pierre Blackburn just loves tequila. He loves it so much, he apparently needs a bottle of the stuff wherever he goes. Even if he’s doing something as boring as boarding a flight, he needs his hand wrapped around the neck of some sweet, sweet Mexican hangover juice. (Before you criticize the guy, wouldn’t you enjoy the odd tipple if your boss was Stephen Harper?) As he was boarding a flight at the Ottawa airport recently, Blackburn – obviously – happened to have a bottle of tequila on him after a Mexican vacation. Now, this is blatantly against the universally-known rule that you can’t bring more than 100 mL of liquid onto a plane, and the less universally-known but more common-sense rule that it’s not a good idea to let people bring their own tequila onto airplanes. They serve it on the plane.

After being informed that he can’t blatantly violate travel restrictions just because he’s an old guy who wear nice suits, he pulled a Guergis and lost his shit. However, it’s unclear what exactly happened. Some are claiming he was just being an entitled asshole, and that he threw his weight as an MP around, threatening and berating the security guards. According to Blackburn, there was only a minor disagreement between him and security because he wanted the tequila to be poured out, and security weren’t complying. Apparently, even though security guards were willing to hold the tequila in storage for him at the Ottawa airport, the Emperor wasn’t falling for their trick, since he was convinced the guards really wanted to pound back body-shots with his precious Cuervo after their shift. Seriously, Blackburn? That was your big concern? That these highly-trained, noble airport security officials who make a decent salary are so petty and douchey they’d nick your stupid $20 liquor bottle? There’s liquor stores in Ottawa, you know.

Anyways, Blackburn is lucky he didn’t get shots from a tazer. Or that he didn’t get sent to the tequila slammer, where he’d spent the night until tequila sunrise, unless he got a friend to tequila popper him out of his cell.  Frankly, I Sauza this coming from a mile away. He won’t be getting any Patron-age appointments.

Alright, alright, I’m done.

So now we’ve got a combination of tequila, a hissy fit and someone acting like an entitled brat. An episode of Jersey Shore? Nope, Canadian politics! Let’s hear the incredibly predictable opposition response. David McGuinty (Ottawa South) licked a dash of salt off the back of his hand, made this statement, and then bit into a lemon slice:

“These two episodes now demonstrate an arrogance amongst these ministers that is simply unacceptable.”

Yeah, we know, it’s awesome! But everyone knows these stories always come in threes.

Bet now on the Ministerial Hissy Fit Betting Pool! You win if you can correctly guess the well-publicized shitstorm that will hit a Cabinet Minister within the next month. It’s like a Canadian version of Clue!

WHODUNIT: Flaherty (5:1), Nicholson (4:1), Raitt (3:1), MacKay (5:1), Day (4:1), Clement (5:1), Ambrose (2:1), Kenney (2:1), Baird (even)

IN THE: Airport (2:1), Journalist scrum (2:1), Tourist destination (3:1), Restaurant or other place minimum-wage employees can be belittled and harassed (4:1), In front of children (4:1), Secluded wilderness (6:1), Closed-door meeting that still gets reported by opposition via Twitter (5:1), In front of a police officer (3:1), Parliament (even)

WITH THE: Drunkenness (2:1), Felony-committing (4:1), Temper tantrum (even), Crying (4:1), Fistfight (6:1), High treason (7:1), Throwing feces in simian rage (10:1)

[Story: The Star - they mention the hilarious sub-text that Blackburn was afraid highly-trained airport security officers would steal his liquor like they were cash-strapped undergrads at a frat party. CBC omitted that part, shame!]

You put your right wing in, and you shake it all about

What’s that? A CABINET SHUFFLE? Boy, that sounds like something a website ostensibly about Canadian politics should cover! Alright, wait wait, don’t tell me who moved where… first, I wanna make my guesses, y’know, get my fantasy picks into ProLine.

PREDICTED CABINET SHUFFLES:
Stockwell Day – Moved from International Trade Minister to Minister of La Francophonie; Peter MacKay – Moved from Minister of National Defence to Minister of Status of Women; Tony Clement – Moved from Minister of Industry to Special Emissary to the Mole People; A Nice Guy Named Fred Who Was Hanging Around The Parliamentary Cafeteria And Seemed Pretty Nice - Appointed to Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians; Stephen Harper – Moved from Prime Minister of Canada to Super Prime Minister, a new post which holds the same basic responsibilities of a Prime Minister, but more Super.

Alright, I’ve got my picks in, let’s see how I did on ProLine!

But first, let’s see what Cabinet shuffle-related headlines are flying off the sails of the Grand Old Ship Globe & Mail! First:

“PM taps Day to put a lid on spending”

I really don’t want to hear about why Harper “tapped” Day, thanks. Then:

“Analysis: Stephen Harper cracks fiscal whip and tries to make nice with Quebec”

And I really, really don’t want to hear about Harper cracking any whips against anyone. Was he cracking the whip after, or while he was tapping Stockwell Day? Uggghhhh. Let’s move on.

WHO WENT WHERE:

• >Rona Ambrose
• To: Public Works From: Labour.
• Analysis: This is a promotion from the humdrum world of Labour into the bright-lights big-time world of Public Works for the Conservatives’ resident hottie. Note that the term “hottie” isn’t my own opinion, she was voted Most Attractive Female MP by the Hill Times reader poll, but the only people that vote in that are a handful of bespectacled, hair-slicked Tory policy wonks, so I guess Rona’s their type. Anyways, now she’ll get all… Public Works-y, all up in your shit.
• Implications: Her three-way trade freed up the crappy Minister of Labour job to be filled by Lisa Raitt, who got bumped down for being incompetent in the Natural Resources job. Rona took Public Works from Christian Paradis, who had a blurb in the Globe as the shooting star to watch this year. That freed up Paradis to get promoted to Raitt’s old Natural Resources job. For our purposes, let’s never speak of any kind of three-way between Rona Ambrose, Lisa Raitt and Christian Paradis ever again.

• >Keith Ashfield
• To: Revenue with responsibility for the Atlantic Gateway.
• Analysis: Greg Thompson, a popular old-school Conservative from New Brunswick, resigned from Cabinet over the weekend. According to Wikipedia, about Thompson: “He resigned from his position in Cabinet on January 16, 2010 because he couldn’t face having to make a trip to New Zealand and announced he would not be running in the next election.” What the hell, dude? New Zealand? It’s not like they wanted you to go to war-torn Liberia. Hell, most people would gladly take a nice trip to scenic New Zealand as a lovely perk of their job, they wouldn’t resign just to get out of it! Do you have an irrational fear of Hobbits or something?
• Implications: Anyways, Thompson’s out, so this nobody Keith Ashfield got to snag the lesser of Thompson’s two positions. Honestly, he was probably just the first one in the caucus meeting to yell “Dibs!” after Harper announced “Revenue With Responsibility For The Atlantic Gateway, anyone want it?” after pulling the title out of a hat.

• >Jean-Pierre Blackburn
• To: Veteran Affairs From: National Revenue
• Analysis: And then Harper called out Thompson’s other vacant position, “Veteran Affairs”, and Blackburn was smart enough to yell “Dibs!”.
• Implications: Keith Ashfield probably feels stupid for calling dibs on the first one out of the hat.

• >Diane Ablonczy:
• To: Minister of State for Seniors. From: Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism
• Analysis: This is a subtle hint that Diane, 60, is getting on in years, and maybe should focus on “old lady” stuff. It’s like casually mentioning to your mom that you’ve heard good things about a local retirement home, not that you’re saying she should go to one or anything, just that hey, she’s not as young as she once was, is all.
• Implications: None. Are you serious?

• >Rob Moore
• To: Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism
• Analysis: He’s some nobody New Brunswick newbie backbencher who got to take Diane’s job.
• Implications: Meh!

• >Stockwell Day
  
• To: President of the Treasury Board From: International Trade
• Analysis: Harper wants a guy on point in the Treasury Board to institute some tighter monetary controls and stop throwing cash around to the provinces. Needing a hard-nosed, stubborn prick, he immediately thought of Stockwell “Doris” Day.
• Implications: Stockwell’s appointee for Vice-President of the Treasury Board will, in fact, be Jesus.

• >Christian Paradis
  
• To: Natural Resources From: Public Works
• I pretty much covered this one in the Rona Ambrose three-way trade mentioned up top, but he’s supposed to be the NEXT BIG THING. Look out, Natural Resources!

• >Lisa Raitt
  
• To: Labour From: Natural Resources
• Analysis: The third part of the three-way trade above. This is a big-time demotion for Raitt who, you’ll remember, well… let’s just copy and paste from the Globe: “She landed in hot water last year after she was caught on tape referring to the medical isotope shortage as a “sexy” issue. Her aide also left a damaging tape on the desk of a reporter in which Ms. Raitt criticized a cabinet colleague, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, and then left confidential documents at the offices of CTV News.”
  
• Implications: As the writer for a Canadian politics snark-blog, I hope her wacky gaffes continue in Labour! Anyways, the mini-scandals above would be the sort of thing that could easily be buffed out compared to the car-totalling crashes of scandals that you come to expect from watching American politics. Down there Congressmen get a slap on the wrist for wild corruption/sex with people who aren’t their wife/sex with people who are more male and teenager-like than their wife/all of the above, while here in Canada you’ve got Cabinet ministers getting multi-step demotions for being forgetful and calling non-sexy stuff “sexy”. Hell, I do both of those things every day!

• >Vic Toews
• To: Public Safety From: Treasury Board President
• Analysis: On paper, I feel like this one’s a demotion. “Public Safety Minister” has always struck me as sounding like a made-up title for a grade school hall monitor in an orange vest, warning people not to run or engage in rough play. Anyways, Toews’ a huge blowhard right-winger who wants to put the whole country in jail for imaginary thought-crimes, so I’m none too happy about him being in any area of social power rather than the relatively harmless number-crunching of the Treasury Board.
  
• Fun fact: Vic’s wife left him after he had a child out of wedlock with some other chick. Hey, here’s a Public Safety initiative you could head up: condoms!

• >Peter Van Loan
  
• To: International Trade From: Public Safety
• Analysis: This one’s a demotion for sure. I’ve read a few places that Van Loan “bungled” the Safety job, but not much in the way of elaboration. Apparently his views on the issue of corrections didn’t mesh with Harper’s. He’s still in Harper’s inner circle though, so he got shuffled to International Trade taking over from Stockwell, which is a pretty nice gig in its own right.
• Implications: Apparently, Van Loan’s old job at Public Safety was starting to heat up with a lot of terrorism buzz-talk and calls for a top-to-bottom review of everything from airport security to RCMP training to immigration, so now all of that’s on the plate of nutty old Toews. Expect the final report to consist of a mumbled “Deport all th’Gays n’ Muzzies”.

DAMNIT, I didn’t get a single fantasy pick right! This is the last time I play ProLine on Cabinet shuffles.

Plus, sometimes it’s possible to hate a person just from seeing their face, so, that’ll come in handy later for our “Worst MP” contest!

Left: Rob Anders, Calgary West (Cons.) Right: Harold from The Red Green Show

Left: Leon Benoit, Vegreville—Wainwright (Cons.) Right: Beeker

More after the jump!

Left: Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Jonquière—Alma (Cons.) Right: Emperor Palpatine, Lord of the Sith

Left: Lois Brown, Newmarket-Aurora (Cons.) Right: Renee Zellweger, back when she was in "Bridget Jones" mode, not hot Renee Zellweger

Left: Claude DeBellefeuille, Beauharnois-Salaberry (BQ) Right: Tony Clement, Parry Sound-Muskoka (Cons.)

Left: Mark Holland, Ajax-Pickering (Lib.) Right: Butthead

Oh, we’re just getting started, you bet your sweet ass there’ll be more. It’s our new favourite game!

Send us your suggestions, too. Don’t be shy, anonymous reader. Comment box’s right there, hon.