Rice and McKay sitting in a tree

One could easily find the insinuation that Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were having an affair to be insulting and bizarre. However, too many people were talking about it, and most of those people don't think it really happened.

Of course, an affair between Rice and MacKay would be further proof of an improved relationship between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George W. Bush.

The repartee back and forth did seem suggestive, as in MacKay (not seriously) wanted to plant the idea. He spoke of her sleeping with the windows open to enjoy the really great Atlantic Canada air. She called him Peter. They teased one another on who would pay for coffee at a Tim Hortons.

The trip to Halifax was to tie in with the fact that on September 11, 2001, many U.S. flights had to land in Halifax. Nova Scotia's capital has also hosted Bush for the same reason, several years after it happened.

You would think that MacKay would stay away from high-profile relationships, given that Belinda Stronach broke up with him and the Conservative Party in a rather public fashion. The look on MacKay's face the day after on his potato farm back in Nova Scotia in front of reporters is something you remember any time you break up with someone.

Whether relations improved may have taken a back burner to this melodrama. Hopefully, the "affair" was a smokescreen for actual work getting done.