Ew, Canada

Ew, Canada
: Christie Blatchford, a well-known Canadian columnist, says Canada didn’t have to send bombs, only words of support, to avoid seeing its relationship with its testy neighbor to the south deteriorate. [via Blogs of War]

Canada did not have to grab a chair and crack it over the head of the guy her American pal was pummelling in the bar, she had only to refrain from actively cheering the other fellow on — oh, and maybe buy the Yank a drink when the mess was over.

It is this national failure of nerve that is, as the modern lingo has it, the root cause of the wildly deteriorating state of relations between the two countries; why the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, said what he said this week (and why Mr. Bush, his close personal friend, gave him the go-ahead to do so) and why it now appears Mr. Bush’s first visit to Ottawa, slated for this spring, may be in jeopardy.