Jane Taber has an interesting background piece on what was going on yesterday in Ottawa.

Reporters were cranky and some Liberal MPs were so worried that one of their colleagues described them as looking as if they were in the “fetal position.”

The Tories were tense.

At a midday meeting in the National Press Theatre, Stephen Harper’s senior officials, Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Geoff Norquay and Paul Lepsoe, were demanding the television networks provide their leader with a lectern, a Teleprompter and an advance copy of the speech.

“We walked into the meeting . . . [and found] Osama bin Laden Martin is mailing his tapes in from the cave and that he’s got six minutes in English and six minutes in French . . . we wanted more or less the equivalent in production values for Stephen,” Mr. Norquay said.

An impossible request since the only lectern belonging to the National Press Gallery is nailed to the floor in a basement room in the Centre Block used for press conferences. The network reps suggested they rent a Teleprompter. And about that advance copy of the most important speech of the Prime Minister’s short career as leader? Were they crazy?

They got up and walked out in a huff. A few hours later their issues were resolved; the parties got together in a common front and found a lectern and Teleprompter.

Image consultants make good money. I don’t know why. They school politicans to notice things like:

One Liberal MP noted the Prime Minister’s choice of a soft brown suit and tie provided a warm, fuzzy image. He contrasted that with the much starker Bay Street blue of Stephen Harper.