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Here's an interesting threesome: Julie, Maxime and Gilles. You know - the biker babe, the politician and the politician's father.

No, I'm not imputing they are a real threesome in the, uh, biblical sense, but why on earth was Gilles Bernier, ex-politician and father of judgmentally challenged Maxime, taking the microphone on his son's behalf? Can his 45-year-old son not defend himself?

At the former Tory foreign affairs minister's very odd press conference/political rally in St-Georges-de-Beauce on Wednesday, at which Maxime Bernier basically said he had no idea - none! - that his once-upon-a-time girlfriend Julie Couillard was associated with bikers and other criminals, his father, Gilles, 73, added yet another intriguing layer to the dysfunctional political dynamic that is the Maxime Bernier affair.

Not only did Papa Bernier, who held the riding of Beauce from 1984 to 1996, as a Tory and later as an independent, glad-hand everyone who entered, acting, said one observer, "as if it was his own political rally." But the father also suggested that his son had been set up by Ms. Couillard, whom Papa B. would only refer to as "Madame."

"It was certainly a trick," he told reporters.

But what exactly was the trick? That Ms. Couillard sought out his son's company in the first place for unspecified nefarious reasons?

Or that his smart, likeable, but alas not very emotionally intelligent son, after such a promising start in politics, seemed to make one stunning misjudgment after another, including arriving with the ridiculously dressed, cleavage-baring Ms. Couillard at his swearing-in, and ultimately leaving behind classified documents at her apartment?

(It was for the latter sin and not the cleavage or the criminal connections that he officially resigned.)

According to news reports, when asked why Mr. Bernier had resigned if, as he claimed, the documents left at Ms. Couillard's apartment were not very sensitive, the father reportedly replied (with a shrug): "In the heat of the moment, he was forced to. He had no choice. ... He did the honourable thing."

And finally Papa B. topped it off with a declaration that "Madame" would be proven to be the bad guy in all this. "The scandal is not on our side."

Well, some might think it a scandal that a man grown up enough to be a cabinet minister, not to mention enter into a sexual liaison with an eye-bustingly beautiful woman, would not also be man enough to say to his father, "Let me handle this."

Instead, the father pitched in to slag the former girlfriend.

Mr. Bernier Sr.'s presence and spirited defence of his son were clearly a carefully calibrated part of his son's public relations campaign to salvage his political career.

And some might argue it's not that odd: Hillary Clinton, after all, talked of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" when her husband was caught with his pants down. But she was the wife, and her dignity and her marriage were being assaulted.

In this case, with Gilles Bernier being the father, it does seem a bit babyish to put Papa forward to say what his son would not: that he'd been had.

Not to mention ungentlemanly, a let's-take-her-down approach that we don't like to see as a father/son dynamic, although perhaps it's more prevalent than we admit when it comes to pesky women.

Mind you, there is more than one Freudian nuance in all this.

Apparently it was Gilles Bernier, who was so wildly popular in the Beauce that he was referred to as "the King," and not his son, whom Stephen Harper first asked to run in 1997. Gilles freely acknowledged this in interviews, but he has always been happy to speak glowingly about his son.

After all, don't all fathers dream of their sons doing better in life than they did? And hadn't Maxime made a leap to becoming not just a popular regional politician like his father, but a cabinet minister, and one who achieved the greatest majority of votes in the Beauce since Confederation?

And don't all sons want to go one better than their fathers? (That is purportedly one of the reasons why George W. Bush went after Saddam Hussein, because his father had failed to take him out.)

For the Berniers, it was more benign: "My landslide is bigger than yours."

When his son, of whom he is obviously so proud, began to make a few missteps as foreign minister, well before the full extent of the Julie Couillard scandal became known, Gilles Bernier protectively told The Globe and Mail that Maxime was only going through a rough patch and would find his way.

Alas, it was not to be.

The presence of Gilles Bernier on Wednesday helped guarantee a huge turnout for his beleaguered son. And while he may well win his seat handily in the next election, Maxime Bernier may never see a cabinet-level confidential briefing book again, despite his father's unabashed efforts to help put it right.

The truth is, to the list of lapses in Maxime Bernier's judgment, a new one can be added: allowing his father to do his dirty work.