What David Hasselhoff is to Germans, I am the opposite to Canadians. OK, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But in the last week, yours truly has become one of the most reviled Americans north of the 49th Parallel. It's all because of a cover story for the current issue of National Review in which I argue for the strategic bombing of Canada.
Let me recap. Five decades ago, historian Frank Underhill wrote that the Canadian is "the first anti-American, the model anti-American, the archetypal anti-American, the ideal anti-American as he exists in the mind of God."
It's a rather famous quote among students of U.S.-Canada relations, and it's pretty much entirely wrong. The New Soviet Man or the French Intellectual: these are the "ideal" anti-Americans because they not only hated America but they offered an alternative to it (a dictatorship of the proletariat and a dictatorship of extremely clever cheese-makers, respectively).
Canadian anti-Americanism, meanwhile, is reflexive not reflective. It offers no alternatives, no positive vision. One angry e-mail I received summed it up: "The one great thing about Canada is that we're not America." Well, there are hundreds of countries that can put "not America" on their collective resumes.
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All of this matters because you cannot be a moral superpower — or even a persuasive voice — in world affairs if you are not willing to put your money where your mouth is. Moreover, despite what many Canadians may think, America has long seen her northern neighbor as a partner, not a vassal. But if Canada refuses to act like an ally, preferring to parrot anti-American insults from the floor of the U.N., the U.S. will do what's necessary without bothering to ask for Canada's opinion.
That's why I suggested — sarcastically — that we should bomb Canada. If we did, it might slap the Canadians back into coherence and force them to take their responsibilities seriously again.
The reaction from Canadians has been both surprising and predictable. Of the nearly 1,000 e-mails I've received, about a third of them are from Canucks on my side. They are ashamed of the false face projected by their government and media. It's heartwarming to hear, especially amid so many offers to slap me around. It's not the same as being the Canadian David Hasselhoff, but I'll take it.
(Jonah Goldberg [Tribune Media Services] in Town Hall, November 15, 2002)
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We need to remember that fact; the vast majority of the Canadian people where I live are NOT representative of their government. They are our friends, and they deserve mutual respect......