Just because you’ve gotten away with taking Michael Ignatieff’s quotes wildly out of context, it doesn’t mean you can get away with it for everyone else.

Especially when the “everyone else” is Sheila Fraser, who your party has played no small role in lifting to deity status:

Tories misquoted me on summit costs, Fraser says

Auditor General Sheila Fraser has written a scathing letter rebuking the Conservatives for misquoting her in a parliamentary report on the costs of the G8/G20 summits in Toronto last summer, CBC News has learned.

The Conservatives’ report, presented as a dissenting opinion to the Commons the morning Parliament was dissolved last month, quotes Fraser giving high marks to the Harper government for prudent spending on the summits.

The report quoted the auditor general as saying: “We found that the processes and controls around that were very good, and that the monies were spent as they were intended to be spent.”

But in her leter addressed to members of a Commons committee on Friday, which was received by the clerk and members on Monday, Fraser said the quote had nothing to do with the summits.

Instead, she said, the Conservatives recycled an old comment she made on security spending by a previous Liberal government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a decade ago.

“The comments attributed to me in the [Conservative] report are completely unrelated to G8/G20 spending,” Fraser writes in her letter.

“I would appreciate it if the report could be modified as it is clearly erroneous.”

I know it sounds weird, but I almost want to give Harper the benefit of the doubt here. If only because I can’t imagine anyone intentionally doing something so stupid, and expecting to get away with it.

But I think we’re long past giving anyone in this government the benefit of the doubt on these kinds of issues.