Why are the RCMP so Good at Routing Out Michael Ignatieff's Facebook Friends, But Can't Spot a Criminal at 50 Feet?

During the Maxime Bernier scandal, when he left sensitive documents in the apartment of his girlfriend, an ex-biker chic, the media focused on the sex angle.

What they should have focused on was her criminal past and why she was granted access to our foreign minister. Harper allowed the RCMP to take the blame, but given his control, it's rather doubtful that he didn't know who she was.

Now in the words of Yogi Berra, "It's Deja Vu all over again".

Bruce Carson was granted unprecedented access to Stephen Harper, despite a criminal past that included ties to money laundering.

Convicted fraudster Bruce Carson’s past should have raised red flags that he was a security risk to government, even if he may not have been a likely target for blackmail, some former CSIS experts suggest. “Any investigator in my 33-years’ experience, nobody would have recommended to keep that guy. Nobody,” former CSIS intelligence officer Michael Juneau-Katsuya said about Carson being green-lighted for a secret-level security clearance.

A secret clearance is given to many federal employees and is the second-lowest security clearance level. Carson, a former senior aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, obtained a secret clearance despite having been convicted of five fraud charges in the early 1980s and 1990s.

And Harper is not explaining how Carson was given the contract to sell us on the tar sands. Millions of taxpayer dollars.

And worse still why he became the point man on the Afghan file, a place where screening is of the utmost importance.

Stephen Harper now says he never would have hired Carson had he known all the details of his criminal past. But starting in 2007, Carson was a regular participant in daily telephone briefings on Afghanistan involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections.

“It was evident to all the departments that he was the main player, Harper’s point man on the file,” said one source familiar with the briefings. “He was given the most sensitive file to work on . . . it’s not like he was working in the mailroom.”

The media has also been focusing a lot on the sex angle, but this is a very serious breech, that could be a threat to national security.

We could ask Harper but we know what he'll say. Absolutely nothing. Or at least not anything that isn't a lie.

Remember May 2. Our last best chance.