Duffy channels Agnew?

Very strange things happen to people's brains when they get religion or political appointments. Fully exploiting the fact that as a senator speaking within the Red Chamber he cannot be sued for slander or libel, Mike Duffy made a rude speech, later retracting a metaphor under pressure from Harper.

Duffy's speech referred to the "nattering nabobs of negativism on the East Coast" who loudly protested equalization adjustments in the Harper government's recent budget that could cost Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I. equalization money.

Right at the moment, Mike Duffy's former colleagues think that it's funny, given that his current target happens to be Atlantic politicians.

Will they still find it amusing when he goes full Spiro Agnew and starts calling them "an effete corps of impudent snobs", the "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" and the "commie-pinko-liberal press"?

Update: Both pogge and Dave at TGB reflect upon Duffy, albeit from different perspectives. Yet both conclusions seem unanimous in observing that Duffy's appointment is the equivalent of Harper lobbing a MASSIVE stink bomb into the Senate.