It’s time the Liberals ended their pearl-clutching about Conservatives criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s $10.5 million deal with Omar Khadr in the U.S. media.

This based on allegations by Liberals like Trudeau Principal Secretary Gerald Butts and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna.

They argue that by appearing in American media criticizing the Trudeau/Khadr settlement, Conservative MPs like Peter Kent (Wall Street Journal) and Michelle Rempel (Fox News) risk undermining Canada’s NAFTA negotiations with the U.S.

Right. In the real world, accusing Conservatives of queering NAFTA talks is the third attempt by the Liberals to shift blame for the Khadr deal away from them.

The first was Trudeau lamenting this was the price we have to pay when governments violate the Charter rights of Canadians, followed by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale blaming it all on Stephen Harper.

Apparently, the Liberals forgot the 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that found Khadr’s rights had been violated by the Canadian government, focused on the period 2003-2004, under the Jean Chretien and Paul Martin Liberal governments.

The second attempt was Trudeau claiming he was saving Canadians money, because the Khadr case could have cost the government as much as $40 million had it gone to trial, as opposed to his $10.5 million settlement.

Aside from the fact Trudeau appears to have pulled this “up to $40 million” figure out of a hat, does anyone recall Trudeau’s election promise of “modest” Liberal deficits over his first term in office, totaling $24.1 billion, with a $1 billion surplus in the final year of 2019-20?

Current Trudeau government projections put the deficit total at $93.3 billion, an increase of 287%, with no end to deficits in sight.

So much for Trudeau saving us money.

Now we have this third Liberal attempt, that while it’s okay for Canadian politicians to rip the crap out of each other in Canada, it’s not cricket to do so in the U.S. media on Canadian issues.

Except the Khadr deal isn’t just a Canadian issue because he was convicted in a U.S. military court in Guantanamo Bay of killing U.S. soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer and wounding Sgt. Layne Morris, in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan.

Besides, when has Trudeau ever had qualms about using the U.S. media for his political ends -- the latest being a gushing Rolling Stone cover story about him headlined, “Why Can’t He Be Our President”?

While Trudeau has developed a good working relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, and while he didn’t write the headline, I’m betting if Trump gets angry about anything that might queer the NAFTA talks, “Why Can’t (Trudeau) Be Our President?” is a lot more likely to tick him off than Conservative MPs criticizing the Khadr deal in American media.

Finally, this quaint Butts/McKenna/Liberal notion that where a politician says something is important in the borderless age of the Internet and social media, dates back to the media era of typewriters, “Get Me Rewrite!” and “Stop the Presses!”

It also helps explain why political operatives in all parties, even those who use social media, still think it’s oh-so-clever to drag the legacy media out to a farm during an election, so the leader can announce an “agriculture” policy standing in manure.

Right. Now, where’s my Commodore 64, a phone modem and a landline so I can file this baby to Sun Media?