A trove of diplomatic cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of publications, disclose a perception by American diplomats that Canadians “always carry a chip on their shoulder” in part because of a feeling that their country “is condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the U.S. ‘Batman.’ ” [...]
It also noted that Canadian officials worried that they were being excluded from a club of English-speaking countries as a result of their refusal to take part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The United States had created a channel for sharing intelligence related to Iraq operations with Britain and Australia, but Canada was not invited to join.
Shut up, Canada. Opening your big Canadian mouth only makes you look less cool. [NYT]
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Take off, you hosers!
10 bucks is 10 bucks, eh?
But that is like 38 metric beers.
G'Day. I'm…ELRON McKenzie….
What a bunch of knobs, eh?
Who even gave them permission to say this in English? They can jabber about it in French all they want.
In early 2008, American diplomats stationed in Ottawa turned on their television sets and were aghast: there was an “onslaught” of Canadian shows depicting “nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious deeds in Canada,” from planning to bomb Quebec to stealing Canadian water supplies.
Oh dear — so Dubya-era diplomats watch prime-time dramas and conclude that they reflect some sort of general mood of the people. Do they watch US television and conclude that we're all undercover cops who slink around dark buildings with our guns drawn, or else we're all doctors engaged in torrid affairs with our coworkers?
Fortunately, as time has progressed from the Dark Ages of 2001-2008, it seems the Canadian perception of the US has improved — and that's in spite of our now being run by a socialist liberal elitist who doesn't understand the working man.
or get ideas on how to torture terrorists from watching a TV show called 24?
With Kiefer Sutherland, a Canadian, as Jack Bauer.
Haha, it was funny I was watching one of those shows on Netflix the other day– "Intelligence" – it's a cop show that takes place in Vancouver, where the villains are either US gangsters or US government agencies half the time. That was the show with the "stealing Canadian water" plot also.
I'll admit on it's face it seems kind of ridiculous, but when the plots of supposedly half-way serious dramas are as ridiculous as Americans planning to bomb fuckin' Quebec (we'd bomb Alberta for it's oil, if anywhere at all), well, I can understand how they may think they aren't dealing with the most friendly neighbors. Culture tends to reflect itself in other places.
What is this "Canada" of which you speak?
You may know it as "Canuckistan."
It's the state to the North of Minnesota.
Or, Minnesota is the Banana Belt of Saskatchewan.
It's that place nearest Sarah Palin.
You know, the "other nation I can see from my front porch."
It means OUR HAT.
Upper, Upper Michigan
It's the place everyone is planning on fleeing to once President Palin is sworn in. Except for the Wonkettariat, who know that Costa Rica is the place to go.
Canada is also condemned to be the Gabrielle to our Xena, the Rory to our Lorelei, the Sam to our iCarly, and the Beans to out Pork 'n'.
I'm getting tired of seeing all these Canadians, taking advantage of our wonderful Health-Care system. FINISH THE DAMN FENCE!
Exactly, that's why we pay three times as much for mediocre results. We must stop the unrelenting surge of cancerous canucks.
Long live CanadaDrugs.com! Or, long may they keep me alive w/cheaper meds!
Is that a real URL? because I would love to get a deal on Lunesta and Lyrica. Our (lack of) health care system sucks.
It's real. I use them for everything, save quite a bit.
Maybe we should stop referring to them as America's hat. That is kinda demeaning.
I always thought it was "America's slow cousin."
I know, I know, leave Trig alone!
Do they prefer "America's Condom?"
Nah. They obviously can't keep us from fucking the North Pole.
"America, Jr." is the politically correct term, now, I hear. They change it up more than the Afro-Americans. Wait, that's not what you call them, now? Fuck.
The very very Northern?
You're right.
America's CHAPEAU.
It would be hilarious if we did not bother to give Canada access to this information because we just assumed they were spying on us too and already saw it.
Maybe it's time we realized that maple syrup is a gateway to sharia. Send the frostbacks back!
would you like some poutine with that whine?
Maybe if we quit starting unnecessary wars, roping their soldiers into them as our allies and then killing them ourselves…but that's crazy.
ttommy, you need to cut back on the peyote before you start hallucinating that we will behave like a lighthouse of democracy.
Maybe it's that acid rain thing?
Good God, can Canada sound any more like my ex-girlfriend?
…Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
It's always about you. News flash: the world doesn't revolve you, eh? If you weren't so self-absorbed, you'd have figured out that this relationship had problems a long time ago, but that's par for the course with you.
Note the time of irony's death. Six minutes ago. Somebody needs an irony transplant, stat. I'm the girlfriend talking, get it? Joke?
And I'm Canadian. Sheesh.
Hey, hey, its all right. We only give you negative fisting because we love you, you know that, right?
I love you too, eh? **sniff** We can still be friends, right?
(Lost all my fucking mojo. WTF?!)
Worse, she swore like a stevedore….
We knew you were Canadian. That was why.
"See what you made me do, baby? Now I'm going to have to you give you a fist up! Honey, hurtin' you is the last thing I want to do…, but it's still on the list!"
Fuck. Are YOU his ex-girl friend? Oh, wait. I said that to my husband today, and I'm not Lionel's ex-girlfriend.
Was she French?
And hasn't Canada learned anything? If they want to be taken seriously, start a nuclear program like North Korea, Iran or Belgium.
Yep, they think of us as "Gretzsky-snatchers" "skinny bacon lovers" and "upper Mexicans"
Haut-Mexique
Not true. We don't think of you as skinny anything.
Okay, fine, you pass the vision test.
I've always thought that an intelligent way to verify/crazy check U.S. foreign policy is to check out the Canadians – ie. they did Korea, but not Vietnam, Afghanistan I, but not Iraq. Plus they have Labatts, eh?
Labatts does *not* go in the plus column. Unibroue, though, ok.
If you drink enough, it does.
When I had my 2nd child in Canada, they wheeled around a trolley with Labatts in the maternity ward.
I was right with you until the Labatts.
So what the Canadians are saying is that they'd prefer an innocently homosocial Bromantic reacharound from the U.S. instead of being the passive partner in some incestuous homoeroticism, amirite?
/Scholarly Batman and Robin geek
"Scholarly" Batman and Robin geek? Please tell me you're not getting your PhD in Batman Studies.
And as soon as the DC Comics endowment arrives, chair of the department!
That's "Cultural Studies" to you, son. Also, is your avatar an "I Rub My Duckie"?
No bickering, you people! We must stand together until our pee dignity is restored!
I believe it is a "Rub My Duckie." I hope they do not defend their trademark on political blogs.
I dunno. But you sound smart to me.
1. I understood what you said, which actually worries me a little.
2. To answer your question: no. Because these "cables" were from US American diplomats, who wouldn't grasp "homosocial" if they were being grasped by it, and who make comic book analogies because (fill in the blank).
3. A Cultural Studies aside: At 63, I believe I'm a bit older than you. My base concept of Batman and Robin was formed from comics while I was nonpubescent. The concept of a "millionaire and his ward" living together and fighting crime together seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I was probably thirty before it penetrated that this might have been seen by some as an unconventional living arrangement.
4. Do you suppose there is any connection between Dick and Allen?
Heh heh. You said "penetrated!"
Send Celine Dion to Gitmo and I will love you long time.
Put her in the same cell as Justin Beiber and let the Thunderdome games begin.
But rules of Thunderdome dictate 2 would enter, 1 would leave.
I don't want either leaving.
Everyone, this is crazy
Can't we all just get BEYOND Thunderdome?
Can't we all just get BEYOND Thunderdome?
Quit askin' or yer goin' IN the dome!
I'm pretty sure they put "My Heart Will Go On" on a loop and played it in Gitmo. I know that halfway through that piece of shit and I would totally give up where the troops are landing.
Even if you didn't know, right?
Wait a minute, I thought Putin and Medvedev were Batman and Robin. Everybody can't be Batman and Robin.
So Bush looking deep into Putin's eyes and soul, does that make him Catwoman? The Joker?
In the case of the US and Canada, they may have been thinking of the Ambiguously Gay Duo.
If anything, Wikileaks has exposed that the State Department needs more and newer comic books.
Well, they're NOT an English speaking country. It's spelled ABOUT.
Oh, Canada.
Trust your instincts, Canada, trust your instincts.
Meanwhile, GeddyLeeks continues to get rebuffed in its efforts to increase U.S. imports. & they thought it would be so easy, with Michelle Obama's anti-obesity crusade. Turns out, she hates Moving Pictures even more than she hates white people.
The important part is that the Canadian diplomats were too passive-aggressive to say any of this to our faces.
We'll be seeing their leaked response on "Passive-Aggressive Notes.com" anytime now!
This is the second "Batman and Robin" reference in Wikileaks. Good Lord, the diplomatic corps is peopled with ten year olds.
So which Robin are they? Haven't there been 20 since DC figured out they could kill one?
And wasn't one a chick?
Yeah, in the Dark Knight. Great comic.
Still, just a few months earlier, during a national election in Canada, the embassy had marveled that “despite the overwhelming importance of the U.S. to Canada for its economy and security,” parliamentary candidates were rarely mentioning anything about relations with their southern neighbor. "Ultimately, the U.S. is like the proverbial 900-pound gorilla in the midst of the Canadian federal election: overwhelming but too potentially menacing to acknowledge."
Yes, US official, we were just too intimidated by your overwhelming potential menace to make you the focal point of our last election. . .
Note to my fellow rather sensitive Canada City dwellers. In case you haven't noticed, we are ROBIN.
You know what? Sometimes it's better to be Robin. Better than being a 300lb overweight bloated sometimes mentally dense/retarded Batman with his belly hanging out of his kevlar armor as he wades into a quagmire of its own making.
You don't SOUND Canadian.
At least they didn't refer to us as Krypto, Streaky, Beppo, or Comet to the US Superman.
How would you feel about "Harpo"? No lines, but pretty universally loved.
Anybody tell the Ambassador that it was not a reality show he was watching?
What did he expect, watching the CBC (Communist Broadcasting Company)?
PS Canadians don't watch the CBC, unless it's a hockey game. That's it!! The cable was really about the Olympics gold medal hockey game; where the Canadian team creamed the US team!
Yeah us!!
Good old Canada!
Again with the inferiority complex!
Sheesh! Give it up already!
Every new outburst just highlights Canada's "little-man" complex.
(I see it here between San Francisco and San Jose. It's futile and tiresome.)
Or between Oklahoma and Texas.
Oh, come on. As a long time San Joser, I have to deny your "futile and tiresome". I'll spot you "petty" or "childish", but it's not "futile" because it isn't actually trying to accomplish anything, and it's only "tiresome" if you lack a sense of humor.
I lived in Marin for five years, and in San Jo for thirty-one. No matter how big or important other parts of the Bay get, the City is the sun around which they all revolve. This is one of those cases where geography trumps everything. Everybody really knows that.
Every so often, some person or organization in the South Bay will fire a shot across SF's bow regarding population or GDP or whatever, and somebody or thing in the City will respond with overpowering snark. Hey, it's cheap entertainment.
I have to admit that living in Toronto, (World Class City!), for four years, and CONSTANTLY hearing about how heinous the U.S. is in every way, and than living on Long Island and hearing them bitch about NYC, (a place many of them have never visited) left me with a jaded attitude toward "second city" and "second country-itis."
And don't even get me started on Philly (the in-laws) vs. NYC!
Oh and hey, apparently an ex-Harper aide was so upset about Canada's shame being made public like this that he called for Obama to call for a hit on Assange. Dude, don't shoot the messenger.
Also, what don't you understand about our break-up? Why would we kill someone because you want us to, when we already dumped you because you wouldn't kill people for us? Nobody likes a needy ex, and a greedy needy ex is the worst of all. If we're going to have a one-assassination stand, you'd better return the favor, at least, instead of having us off yours, and then suddenly getting a headache or falling asleep or re-discovering a sensible foreign policy.
Looking needy for US love isn't going to really help PM Fatty, er, Harper.
Well, Canda should shut up and do what Robin does – keep spending that Bruce Wayne largess and patiently waiting for Batman to die first.
Also, you gotta love the fact that this didn't make Wonkette front page. Always the fat friend, huh Canada?
I don't trust the U.S. either. Does that make me Canadian?
You wish.
Well, yeah – I was sorta hoping…..
No, cause if that makes you Canandian, that means we wouldn't be able to try you for treason.
I've lost all hope they'll annex New England – just too damn nice, those Canadians.
The Canucks are still carrying a grudge from that time we bombed their soldiers in Afghanistan because they looked . . .French. Yeah. That's the ticket. They looked French.
Best and funniest thread today. Of the one I read, anyway.
Forget the Batman/Robin analogy, also forget the anal in the Batman/Robin analogy, I'm thinking more that one of us is the drunken brother-in-law FU in some cosmic sit-com.
The Canadian attitude seems to be Minnesota Nice with lots more ice. You'd think they caught us taking pot-shots at the Giant Nickel of Sudbury with our hunting rifles, not that I'd know anything about that.
Since Toronto was of about the same population and significance as Milwaukee back in 1970, and is now widely considered a world city on par with Paris or London while Milwaukee is that slightly inconvenient dogleg on the Chicago-Madison-Twin Cities routing of a rock-band tour, I suspect the drunken-brother-in-law is us, the US, the Lower 50.
Beware Canada, we are not gazing lovingly into your eyes, we are really staring at the bridge of your nose.
Wait a gol-durned minute, isn't poutine the French way to spell Putin? Coincidence?
Do we hate Canada because so many of them are French?
Do they carry Mexican brown?
Thunderdome has a serious echo.
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