What does a member of the Liberal's 'old-boy's club' do when challenged by a colleague who happens to be of the opposite gender? They regress to elementary school behaviour and start slinging sexist insults.

Such was the case with Liberal MP Pat O'Brien earlier this week when asked by an adult to respond to a statement made by the Liberals' Ontario caucus chair, Sarmite Bulte.

Bulte who was reacting to O'Brien's threat to jump the floor and join the Tories, summed up her opinion by saying, "when the ship is sinking, the rats are running." When asked by a reporter to respond to Bulte's statement, O'Brien in typical old-boy fashion retorted by calling the Liberal caucus chair a "a walking ad for the dumb blond bimbo comment."

Of course as soon as the words left his mouth O'Brien knew that he'd eventually be called to task for them and if one is to believe that O'Brien simply made an honest mistake, consider his comments later in a feeble attempt to apologize.

The ex-secondary school teacher who has been described in the past as a "maverick government backbencher", reverted once again to his 8 year-old inner child and in a I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I mode, attempted to excuse his behaviour by quipping, "I think most Canadians would understand that when you've been called a name...sometimes you give in to the temptation to retaliate." This writer wonders if Mr. O'Brien learned this particular technique during his teaching years.

One would assume that an educated and learned person such as Mr. O'Brien would have left it at that but no, that inner child was determined to continue on with an even more ridiculous "reason" for his outburst. It was the hockey player in him. He felt like Bulte had "high-sticked" him and of course we all know that if a big, burley hockey player gets high-sticked, their first reaction is to throw their own stick down on the ice, turn to the offender and in their best scary voice accuse their attacker of being a "dumb blond bimbo". Ouch.

Pat O'Brien should have been adult enough at the get-go to not resort to school yard name-calling. And after he did succumb to his inner-child brat, he should have immediately contacted Ms. Bulte and offered her a sincere apology.

He did neither. This writer questions whether he would have done anything if he hadn't been contacted by the media and called on it.

Old-boy's club? You betcha. It's rampant in the very place where equality is supposed to be supreme. Shame on you, Mr. O'Brien and shame on Geoff Norquay, a Stephen Harper mouth piece who didn't want to get involved in a private "dispute between Mr. O'Brien and Ms. Bulte".

And these people are running our country..