US President George W. Bush ought to be addressing a joint session of the Canadian Senate and House of Commons during his first official state visit next week. In much the same way that the Iraq war has served to pull every terrorist in the world into the region, a prominent appearance by Bush in the nation’s capital would draw the loony lefties of the world into a single place, where they can prominently display their special brand of class, tact and diplomacy. It would be great for liberals, and far better for conservatives.
Bush needs to make a grand, red-carpet entrance in Ottawa, and ensure that every liberal knows exactly where he is. And liberals should plan to go to Ottawa and heckle really, really loudly. Leftist Canadian politicians should do just what former socialist Member of Parliament, Svend Robinson, did during US President Ronald Reagan’s Parliamentary address in 1987: Heckle him mercilessly until the President asks, like Reagan did, “Is there an echo in here?” MP Carolyn Parrish, who is prone to Tourette’s-like anti-American outbursts, should be taken off any meds and de-muzzled for the occasion. Nothing helps the conservative cause more than liberal protesters acting like boors.
Liberal protesters are so classy that when a Republican president dies, they can't even leave the final judgment up to God. Protesters lined the streets of Reagan’s funeral procession in California. They waved signs, called him a criminal, and said that he ought to go to hell. They were lobbying God like he was Judge Ito during the OJ Simpson trial. The irony is that early in his first term as Governor of California, Reagan was able to capitalize on voter impatience with relentless hippie protests in the 60s and 70s. Keep it up, guys. I’m sure the Gipper’s still laughing.
The Washington Post reported recently that when George W. Bush arrived in Chile for the APEC summit on November 19th, “a crowd estimated at 25,000 to 70,000 marched through downtown Santiago”, tossing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and shouting, “Terrorist Bush” and “Bush: Fascist, thief, murderer.”
Similarly, in a notable incident in Canada three years ago, leftist poster girl, Naomi Klein, and her family crashed a pricey charity fundraising event in Toronto that was being held in honour of anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela. She then proceeded to spend the evening imposing her propaganda on attendees. Shortly thereafter, Klein wrote a column for the Globe and Mail, objecting to what she describes as essentially economic apartheid.
The event’s organizer, Ray Heard, a former South African reporter, responded in the National Post with a reality check for Klein: “I know what [apartheid] was, Ms. Klein. Apartheid was white police -- who took their lessons from former storm troopers -- shooting some 80 black women and their babies in the back with Sten guns at Sharpeville for daring to seek the right to own land and to vote...To suggest now, as Ms. Klein does, that the ANC government of Thabo Mbecki is institutionalizing some form of apartheid is an insult to the people who were murdered or starved in the righteous cause of bringing it down.”
What these folks don’t seem to realize is that calling people “fascists”, “Hitler”, “terrorists” and “murderers”, in lieu of participating in a debate of ideas, doesn’t much aid their cause, nor does it contribute to the public debate. These same people who couldn’t shut up after November 2000 about Bush having “stolen the election”, should take a trip over to the Ukraine right now and see for themselves what real election fraud is. Chances are you won’t see many lefties over there, though, since the guy who is widely viewed as having stolen that election is pro-Russia and anti-American. In other words, he’s a comrade, so it’s all good. It’s precisely the same logic that gives Fidel Castro a free pass on murder, torture and human rights violations.
By the standards of today’s ‘mainstream liberals’ (represented by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry), former Democratic President John F. Kennedy would be an interventionist fascist, terrorist and murderer for having invaded Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, run a nuclear and conventional arms race with Russia’s Khrushchev, and increased financial and military assistance to the Diem government in South Vietnam in order to fight communist insurgency.
During the Democratic National Convention, it wasn’t conservatives who were protesting outside, it was a bunch of liberals protesting other liberals for not being liberal enough. Conservatives had better things to do--like work.
Liberals are people of tolerance and diversity, except when it comes to conservative ideas and views. I’ve heard recently from many of these open-minded, tolerant, peace-loving individuals, though my car window, while driving down the highway with a “Bush 2004: Leadership, Integrity, Morality” bumper sticker plastered on the back of my vehicle. Being in Vancouver, it’s probably the only bumper sticker of its kind in town, but liberals hate any kind of competition. Just witness their reaction to Fox News.
As Bernard Goldberg explains in his book, “Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite”, the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS -- by-and-large run by journalists who self-identify as liberal, according to a study by the Pew Research Institute -- rake in about 35 million viewers each night, while Fox News averages just over a million viewers in an entire 24-hour news cycle.
After explaining that concept yesterday, during an interview with the uber-liberal, Canadian government-funded CBC, I was asked if the fact that Fox News has been approved to broadcast in Canada will be detrimental to the way Canadians think. Funny that no one from the CBC, or anywhere else, asked me the same question when al-Jazeera was given the green light by Canada’s broadcast regulator back in July. No one asked, “Ms. Marsden, do you see it as detrimental to the public debate in this country that the world’s number one source of terrorist beheading videos, Osama bin Laden’s ‘call-to-arms for terrorist’ tapes, and anti-American propaganda from the Arab Street is now permitted to broadcast in Canada?” No one ever asked me that one, but my answer still would have been “no”.
I’m all for smaller government, complete deregulation of the airwaves, and free and open debate of any and all ideas, whether they be liberal, conservative, or anything in between. Ideas and information are not dangerous. Ignorance and censorship are. It’s unfortunate that most liberals don’t appear to feel likewise, particularly when it comes to anything even remotely conservative.
Liberals don’t like to debate. They prefer to disseminate propaganda movies, give uninterrupted lectures, or put out “CDs for Insomniacs”. When liberals do debate, it’s usually Left against the Far-Left--not Left against Right. I’m still waiting for the Left’s favourite recording artist and anti-American conspiracy theorist, Noam Chomsky, to come on my radio show for a debate. Meanwhile, I arrived in Toronto this week and turned on the TV in my hotel room to see Chomsky giving a completely unchallenged talk entitled, “The Imperial Presidency”, at the University of Toronto, to a group of students who, judging from the TV coverage, appeared to be overdosing on the aural equivalent of Valium. Of course, the talk was sponsored by the rabidly anti-corporate “Canadian Dimension Magazine”, and carried by the mainstream media.Rather than arming themselves with facts and logic, liberals prefer to use pies--like the one that was recently launched at conservative columnist, Ann Coulter, during a public appearance. A website (www.rncnotwelcome.com) dedicated to instructing liberals on how to act like total imbeciles in protest of the Republican National Convention in New York City, features an entire section on the art of pieing conservatives. Advice includes how to choose a target (“any pompous evil-doer will do”); how to dress (“shave, put on a suit…you’ll be able to go anywhere!”); how to handle the aftermath (“expect shock and chaos…people will be aghast at what has just transpired”); how to practice (“set up a pie toss gallery to practice at home”); and how to handle the inevitable arrest and assault charges. There’s even a pie recipe included, with tofu as a main ingredient, of course.
Make mine banana cream please, guys. And keep practicing the rhetorical hyperventilation and those maniacal outbursts. Dubya should consider ordering up the same for his Canadian visit. It can only help his cause.