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Not unexpectedly, my National Post colleague Andrew Coyne put things more neatly than anyone else when he tweeted a précis of his column on McCallum, describing it as “when the ambassador for Canada in China becomes the ambassador for China in Canada.”

Mr. Coyne’s neat turn encapsulated the converging opinions of most commentary, from press and politicians, past diplomats and academics that McCallum had egregiously blundered, had forgotten his role, and was either incompetent or wildly freelancing in the middle of the most intense diplomatic crisis Canada has seen in decades.

These judgments received not a little support from the least likely source a day later, Ambassador McCallum himself. Reaching for the most spurious neologism of modern politics, availed of by all politicos caught giving their honest view of things (as opposed to the ventriloquisms of party-line talking points), Mr. McCallum said he had “misspoken.”

Maybe he did. But as many pointed out, a 40-minute “misspeak” is more of a feat than a folly, less a slip of the tongue than a dyslexic marathon. He should be fired, said the Opposition leader, and many outside of politics said the same thing.

The view that he went wildly off on his own is probably, likely, the right one. Nonetheless there is still something odd about this whole sequence. Meaning no disrespect, seriously, I don’t see Mr. McCallum as primarily a creative type. Yet if there is anything that characterizes his press-conference performance, it is its originality. The line he took was brand new and different; no one else in government has even broached it. What brought on this sudden and rare flash of brazen originality?