Bob Rae Swears in Tweet, Justin Trudeau Swears in Parliament

A great day for political discourse, all around.

Update: Justin Trudeau appears to have one-upped his party's leader by allegedly calling Environment Minister Peter Kent a "piece of shit" during Question Period this afternoon. While hansard for today's session isn't available yet, numerous political journalists, including CTV's Robert Fife and Postmedia's Stephen Maher, report that Trudeau yelled the epithet across the floor after Kent said NDP environment critic Megan Leslie didn't know what she was talking about because she didn't go to the Durban climate conference. It's definitely not up to the standard of his father's "fuddle duddle," as it sounds kind of like an insult you'd hear outside a bar at 2 a.m. Perhaps Mr. Trudeau can take a cue from Leslie, who tweeted:

Minister Kent quotes from Nature editorial in QP. Still doesn't know the difference between opinion and science. #cdnpoli

— Megan Leslie (@MeganLeslieMP) December 14, 2011

Now THAT is an effective, witty, pointed criticism! Anyhow, Trudeau apologized, then Peter Kent demanded Trudeau apologize, then Speaker of the House Andrew Scheer reminded Kent that Trudeau had, in fact, just done that. This is your democracy, Canada.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae weighed in on an internecine fight among two "prominent" young Liberals, wondering "what bullshit is this?" in a tweet. The feud centres on Zach Paikin, a 20-year-old who's running to be the Liberals' policy chief, and Max Naylor, son of Dave Naylor, the president of the University of Toronto (not the TSN sports reporter of the same name). Naylor wrote a blog post saying Paikin, his "exceptionally close" friend, would take the party to the right. Paikin disagreed. Then along came noted Liberal party twitterer Adam Goldenberg, who chimed in:

Young Liberals attacking each other in the press. Chrétien warning about hidden agendas. Rae, Gingrich, Kyoto... Um, what decade is this?

— Adam Goldenberg (@adamgoldenberg) December 14, 2011

That prompted Rae's "bullshit" tweet, which marks the second time in a little over a month that a leading federal politician has uttered profanity on the social networking site. NDP MP Pat Martin, of course, called Conservative decisions to limit debate in Parliament a "fucking disgrace" and "jackboot shit," endearing himself to thousands of left-leaning and democracy-cherishing citizens around the country. Rae's tweet is decidedly less explosive, not only for the middle-of-the-road profanity he chose ("bullshit" doesn't come close to that of the jackboot variety), but also for the subject material he was weighing in on. Frankly, no one but dyed-in-the-wool Liberals could give two figs about what two entitled young 'uns think is best for the party, which means, at least, that Rae accurately described Paikin and Naylor's feud, and Goldenberg's insight. Now let's just forget that this ever happened.