I know I was wondering why Stockwell Day, the Tories' foreign affairs critic, hadn't penned a letter to the Palestinian Authority expressing condolences for Yasser Arafat's death. This Canadian Press article answers a few questions:

"Some of you have asked why I have not released a statement of condolence or sympathy,'' the Conservative party's foreign affairs critic wrote in a Nov. 16 e-mail to party colleagues obtained by The Canadian Press.

"As you know, there are two sides to the Arafat story. You pick.''

The e-mail then provides an article by conservative commentator David Frum in Frontpage Magazine which keys on Arafat's terrorist past and the possibility he suffered from AIDS.

"Consider just this one fact,'' Frum said in the Nov. 4 article. "The world media's astonishing lack of curiosity about the nature of the disease for which he sought treatment in France.

"These symptoms sound remarkably AIDS-like, don't they?''

Let me get this straight: If a head of state is suspected of dying of an STD, you don't express condolences to that state?

How about lesser folk? If someone dies of an STD, do the Stockwells of this world not express condolences to the person's friend and family?

It sounds to me like Stockwell would be a great secretary of state for Dubya. I'm not so sure we want him ever representing Canada as foreign affairs minister.