[marron]

I wince a little at what I wrote in post #7, because I don't know how it reads to someone else.

I have worked with many Canadians over the years, both in the US and abroad, and I have always held them in very high regard, they have been almost uniformly decent, competent, good people.

But Canada filtered through the Canadian press is not a pretty sight, and I have been very disappointed by the level of discourse, for example, in Canadian parliament discussions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the level of rhetoric in the Canadian press.

It is hurtful primarily because I hold Canadians in such high regard. No one cares what France thinks, or what Belgians, or even the Germans think. What Canada thinks matters, not on a realpolitik level, they aren't that kind of world power, but on more of a personal level, as we have seen them in the past as an extension of "us". They may not appreciate being an extension of us, they obviously don't, but it is only on that level that we care.

But we did care, and it is on that level that the Canadian cut was the unkindest one.

This takes nothing away from the flesh and blood Canadians I know. I wouldn't want to be judged on the basis of CNN's America, or Jerry Springer's America, or Clinton's America, although they really do exist. The Canadian left isn't very pretty, but then nobody's Left is very pretty.

[quidnunc]

I suspect that what Canadians say to Americans' faces and what they say behind their backs is quite different ("I have nothing against Americans as people, but…")

A year or so ago there was a Canadian scientific poll which reported that 86% of Canadians believed that America wholly or partly bore the responsibility for 9/11.

The Canadian politicians wouldn't be bashing America if it didn't play in Peoria.