Sometimes Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay are given insufficient credit for their wry sense of humour. The serious, literal-minded members of the opposition need to lighten up.

Yesterday, three Canadian generals testified before the parliamentary committee that is hearing testimony on the allegations that detainees handed over to the Afghans by Canadian soldiers were tortured and that the top soldiers and government ministers failed to heed the warnings coming to them from diplomat Richard Colvin in 2006-2007.

The soldiers — Major General, See No Evil, Lieutenant General, Hear No Evil, and General General Speak No Evil — seemed genuinely mystified at what Colvin said in his testimony last week. The generals didn’t get Colvin’s message at the time, they told the committee. In fact, Colvin didn’t even use the word “torture,” Lieutenant General Hear No Evil insisted.

Two of the generals are now retired, but that didn’t stop them from being allowed to read Colvin’s missives so they could prepare for their testimony.

Meanwhile, Colvin is being blocked by the government from releasing those missives so that we can all learn what he said in them. And the government won’t let the members of the parliamentary committee read them either.

In a perfectly realized military operation, the generals aimed their heavy fire power at Colvin, but no one on the other side could shoot back.

That’s because in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence were carrying out their own maneuver — denying the MPs the Colvin documents, while insisting that the opposition was trying to block those on the anti-Colvin side from testifying.

Peter MacKay plays a great straight man to Harper’s straight man. Droll. So much wit and leger de main that the plodding opposition members don’t stand a chance.