In playing devil's advocate for the media policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, historian Allan Levine argues the prime ministers who play hardball with the media are the ones who tend to keep their jobs a while.

From The Globe and Mail: (pay-walled for non-subscribers)

Let's assume Mr. Harper is guilty as charged. That he is the dastardly micro-manager his critics claim, easily explained by a flaw in his personality. But Mr. Harper is also an avid student of history. Perhaps that little tidbit may hold the real key. After all, a quick study of the past five decades or so of Canadian political history makes clear why he has chosen the controlled route he has. Indeed, it could be argued he has no other option in the cut-throat, take-no-prisoners political environment in which he finds himself: Prime ministers who make mistakes or renege on promises, allow information to be leaked, or permit the media to control how their policies are framed and described will ultimately pay a high price. ...

... Mr. Harper marches merrily on to his own restrained drumbeat. He plays the prime ministerial game the only way it must be played - as any hardworking and dedicated control freak with a deft strategy would.

Years of negative reporting about lost luggage, bum-patting, Gucci shoes, leaked off-the-record conversations, personality foibles and plain old human error are to blame for this approach. Mr. Harper understands this more acutely than any of his predecessors.

Reap what you sow, the saying goes. Members of the media are largely responsible for this political climate, and so it seems more than a little hypocritical of them to castigate Mr. Harper for his control-freak survivor instincts.

I have a few issues with the last two paragraphs. I was in second-year university during Joe Clark's ill-fated Mideast sojourn (the 'lost luggage' reference). I admittedly still chortle when I recall his question to one farmer there: "What is the totality of your acreage?"

Unless the media deliberately misplaced the luggage to create a story, I can't see blaming them for making the Clark team look inept. The luggage became a symbol of a trip gone awry. However, Clark went on to win a minority government in the June 11, 1979 federal election -- one that lasted about six months. The Tories brought in a poorly received budget and didn't have the votes to ensure its passage. They lost the 1980 election, in part because they had stopped polling and didn't realize how much their popularity had slid. Nor did they foresee Pierre Trudeau rescinding his resignation. Clark's leadership came under attack after that debacle and he called a leadership convention in 1983 after getting 76 per cent approval. He went on to lose to Brian Mulroney. Maybe none of that would have happened had the media not made fun of his lost luggage.

John Turner's overly familiar pinch of Iona Campagnolo's posterior was simply bizarre, and showed a 1940s frat guy to be seriously out of touch with early 1980s social mores. Is Levine suggesting that wasn't a story?

The Gucci shoes incident is one of many stories that illustrates why the public never warmed to Brian Mulroney, despite having elected him to two majority governments. I'm not sure what Levine means by leaked off-the-record comments. Is he referring to Mulroney's famous "roll the dice" statement in the dying days of Meech Lake? Why on earth did Mulroney say that at such a volatile time?

Every leader has been mocked for personal foibles and human error. That's part of the price for being in the most public job in the land.

My experience is on the journalistic side, not the government side, but I would be surprised if those opposites don't agree that there will always be a tension between the two.

Politicians and other groups see the news media as a publicity mechanism. The news media see politicians and others as a source of news. If the government, or whoever, has a genuinely good story to tell, the journalists should tell it.

However, if the government is trying to spin like crazy to make it appear as though they are doing something on issue X, when in fact they are not, the media should try and cut through that and not let the government get away with BS-ing people. The watchdog function is an important one in a democracy.

I don't blame a government for trying to exert message discipline or spinning, so long as it doesn't devolve into outright lying. But to say politicians must become control freaks because of a predatory media out to record every foible and ignore every accomplishment is a bit much for me. I have a different proposition: How about they become competency freaks, and not give the "predators" anything to write about?