If it's true it doesn't matter what you say about a politician as long as you spell his name right, Peter Goldring's timing was impeccable.

That said, it just doesn't seem like things are going to play out well for Goldring, who until Monday was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Edmonton East.

Just as the Alberta provincial Legislature was debating Premier Alison Redford's tough new drinking and driving law, and Alberta's bar and restaurant owners were working themselves into a swivet about what it was going to do to their profits, Goldring got up on his hind legs at his annual constituency fundraising dinner (roast beef, spud pierogies and fermented liquids) to complain that the law was intrusive and certain to be challenged in court.

Since the media has shown such reluctance to let it go, let's put this whole Ruth Ellen Brosseau brouhaha in perspective.

Brosseau is the young woman elected as the New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for the riding of Berthier-Maskinonge as Opposition Leader Jack Layton's Orange Wave swept through Quebec on May 2.

With a sly nod to the Canadian reality of strategic voting and an open attack on the pathetic way the Harper Conservatives take loyal Alberta voters for granted, New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton opened his national election campaign in Edmonton last night.

There was a crowd of several hundred hardy Alberta New Democrats and loud rock music, of course, but that's pretty much standard operating procedure for television-driven political campaigns nowadays. It was the part of what Layton had to say that is certain to get short shrift from the mainstream media that mattered more than the hoopla.