"Mired in Minorityland"

That's how the Montreal Gazette depicts the sad state that we call Stephen Harper.

It's as if he hasn't noticed yet that the recipe he follows almost religiously remains unpalatable to a majority of Canadians. This week's summer retreat with his caucus in Charlottetown confirmed that he still doesn't get it.

There, in all its glory, he displayed again his obsessive control of his caucus and of short, simple and sometimes simplistic messages - something that helped him get elected, but that has started to put off more and more voters.

When reporters were "escorted" by RCMP officers from the hotel where the Tory caucus was meeting, allegedly because the families felt intimidated, it was just another embarrassing episode of Harper's continued paranoia about the media.

Still keeping his MPs and his ministers on a painfully short leash, Harper seems to feel that even after 18 months in office, most members of his government can't be trusted, or aren't smart enough, to have a conversation with a reporter without risking derailing his tightly controlled messages.

But even if the PM keeps repeating his tired recipe, he could still pull off another minority if Liberal leader Stphane Dion doesn't get his own act together in a more serious fashion.