If you ask this columnist Yankee Doodle is dandy
DALLAS—I tell American friends the kind of Canadians to whom I relate are those who fly the Stars and Stripes on the roofs of their homes alongside the Maple Leaf flag.
Those who have bumper stickers pledging alliance to the United States of America, too.
And those who relish singing the Star-Spangled Banner, often with seemingly as much passion as when singing O Canada.
Yes, these are my kind of patriotic Canadians, those who haven’t been duped by the sham-patriotism crafted for the naive by the likes of Prime Minister Paul Martin and his predecessor, Jean Chretien.
Then I tell them if they want to know how common sense Canadians really feel about their American cousins, they should visit Alberta, especially Calgary, where only an occasional odd-ball or Lib-Left termite has any anger for the fabled Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave.
My words stir them somewhat, since an increasing number of men and women south of us believe our nation is a hotbed of anti-Americanism.
Well, to a degree it is, all deceitfully and deviously stroked by the Lib-Left hierarchy and other malcontents.
The federal Liberals have done Canada a great disservice in A) Promoting anti-Americanism and, B) Actually antagonizing President George W. Bush and Washington generally.
It’s outrageous the Liberals delight in insulting our closest neighbour—the most powerful nation in the world—and the nation underpinning Canada’s economy.
Mainstream Americans take their cues from the likes of rogue MP Carolyn Parrish and her “Americans! I hate the bastards” slur, her childish TV antic of stamping on a doll modelled on Bush, and Chretien’s communications director Francoise Ducros who called Bush a “moron.”
If anyone in the Bush administration—a Senator, member of the House of Representatives or top hired hand—pulled such stunts, they would be out on the street in about 59 seconds flat.
Yet Parrish was not chastised until she turned her vicious tongue on Martin himself, and Ducros remained in her position unfettered until she herself decided to move on.
She’s still drawing a hefty paycheque courtesy of taxpayers.
The more politically astute are perplexed why Washington doesn’t retaliate against us, not for antics of the likes of Parrish or Ducros—boneheads who showed not only their bad manners, lack of breeding and low gutter-type intelligence—but for our economic, military and security misdeeds.
Americans are dumbfounded why we won’t take part in the missile shield program, which would protect us from rogue nuclear missiles that otherwise could devastate Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and why we are so lax on national security.
I’ve made sure tough-talking Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the Senate Committee on national security and defence is widely known down here and held in high esteem.
Far more esteem than in his own Liberal government.
Of course, Washington has retaliated against the Chretien/Martin regimes’ outlandish behaviour: Both the softwood lumber dispute and the ban on Canadian cattle entering the U.S. would have been solved in the early days of the crisis had Brian Mulroney been prime minister—or Preston Manning, Stockwell Day or Stephen Harper.
The White House doesn’t hold total authority across the board—as does the Prime Minister’s Office in Canada—so for Bush to go to bat against protectionist senators and special interest groups on our behalf, he needed more than repeated slaps in the face from the Chretien/Martin clique.
But instead of trying to get Bush onside, Martin threatens the mighty U.S. with a trade war.
He hammers away at Washington knowing he hasn’t the weapons—economic or military—to get any results.
In reality, his stage-managed attacks on Washington are counterproductive.
Instead of building up a friendship, Martin and the Liberals cheering him on are just driving our two governments further and further apart.
We’ll never see photographs or TV clips of Martin and Bush singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling together as with Mulroney and Ronald Reagan. Martin can’t even get a foot in the Oval Office door never mind warbling a duet with the president.
Why the Grits delight in scorning Washington is beyond me and likely you, too.
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