There is a fine line...

Between earning your stripes and falling on your face so many times that your competence becomes a matter of question.

But not to a Conservative. Taking a page out of the Karl Rove playbook, Harper has elevated one of the frat boys based on his loyalty to Dear Leader.

Dimitri Soudas, 30, who has worked for Harper for eight years, replaces John Williamson as director of communications. Soudas, whose most recent position was associate director of communications, will be the prime minister's fifth communications director in five years.

And without even thinking hard, this is how good the guy is:

Last December, he accused Canadian environmentalist Steven Guilbeault of being behind a spoof designed to embarrass the Canadian government at the Copenhagen climate summit. It turned out the Yes Men were responsible for the series of fake news releases that claimed Canada had committed to drastic greenhouse gas emission cuts.

In July 2009, Soudas had to apologize for passing along incorrect information to Harper about comments made by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Harper criticized Ignatieff for saying Canada could become irrelevant at major international summits. But Ignatieff never made the comments, which were made by former Canadian diplomat Gordon Smith.

Earlier this year, Soudas had to close his Facebook account after he accepted a wanted criminal as a friend on the popular social networking site. Infoman, a Radio-Canada news program in Quebec, had faked the friend request and warned Soudas could have been causing a security risk by including personal photos of his family on Facebook.

So the PMO now has an Alfa-Squirrel and a walking example of the Dilbert Principle.

The rest of you Harperites will just have to keep on sucking.

Added: Definitely worth reading. Impolitical and BigCityLib.