(Prime Time Crime exclusive Dec. 06, 2004)
Media hype for anti-Bush protest fizzles
By Leo Knight
On the day after US President George W. Bush visited Ottawa, I was trapped on a plane and thus was forced to watch the CBC news of the events. Why our national carrier persists in showing the moribund CBC a decade after it shed the chains of being a crown Corp is a mystery. But I digress.
What was most noticeable on the CBC broadcast was the almost palpable disappointment in the anti-Bush protest that vastly under-achieved the prognostications of the cheerleading liberal media.
The police were ready for anything and the lame attempt at violence was swiftly dealt with and the knucklehead summarily arrested.
The protest organizers were claiming that 5,000 turned out. Er, no, said the police. It was really about 2,500.
Pop. Fizzle. Big freakin’ deal.
For all that really happened the big media machine sure made it out to be a much bigger deal. The Ottawa Citizen even had a reporter “embedded” with the demonstrators putting up a real time blog describing what was occurring. With the numbers growing from bugger all when she started to its full, but paltry size, she claimed there were 12,000. The words trying to reach a fever pitch with the reporter saying how frightened she was and she could “feel” something was about to burst.
Unfortunately for her, it was her balloon.
Pop. Fizzle.
The media had been doing it best to whip up the anti-American hysteria in this country, that it seems surprised to have discovered we are not actually anti-American. Well then, they said, we must be anti-Bush.
Well, no, not really. Most Canadians feel Bush should have waited a little longer before heading into Iraq, but that’s about it. I’m not one of them, I might add.
Bush did what he had to do at every step of the way since that terrible day in September, 2001. Claims that he is a war criminal and has committed crimes against humanity are the bleatings of the ideologically deluded.
After getting off to a slow start, the US has amassed a heck of a score card in the war since Old Weird-beard kicked it off. Two terror-supporting, brutal regimes are gone. One has already had democratic elections for the first time in living memory, the other is about to. Mohamar Ghadafi, clearly sensing that Bush was no Bill Clinton, raised the white flag and surrendered all his nasty weapons and invited the UN and American inspectors in. Terrorists from all over the map have been drawn into battle in Iraq, not Manhattan, and are getting soundly thrashed. Yes there have been casualties. War is not a pretty business.
The other lunatic in North Korea is not rattling his sabre quite as loudly these days and the Mad Mullahs are getting dangerously close to being the next tick on the checklist. There has not been another substantive terror attack on the United States since 9/11. And while Bush was busy accomplishing all of that, the lib-left media were busy trying to conceive of more ways to use the word “quagmire” in every story about the war.
Fortunately, the Michael Moronification of this country did not catch on except perhaps inside the pointy head of Carolyn Parrish, MP.
I especially liked the headline in the Globe & Mail after the Halifax leg of the trip: “Hundreds lined Motorcade Route – thousands came to protest.”
Well close I suppose. But at least they noticed the crowds of well-wishers who waited for hours just to get a glimpse of the President’s motorcade and wave a welcome if indeed they wildly understated their numbers. And, they certainly underplayed the President's heart-felt "thank you" to the people of the Maritimes for taking in thousands of Americans stranded on 9/11 when air traffic into the US was shut down.
Prior to the visit, the media was suggesting the protest would be 100,000 strong. You’d have thought blood would run in the streets the way they were talking. Oh, they tried to whip up the hysteria. So too did the usual suspects who protest everything from soup to nuts. All their websites tried to make the call to arms.
But alas, to no avail. Pop. Fizzle.
You see, Canadians, despite everything the media is trying to convince you of, just can’t bring themselves to get overly upset at our closest neighbour, biggest trading partner and big brother when it comes to protecting this country.
Sure there was a protest. There is everywhere the President goes - pretty much the same thing with the Prime Minister too. In fact, the PM can usually get a bigger turn out and the media usually ignores them. Well, unless they were as big as the so-called “riot at the Hyatt” and then they do their best to turn it into a police bashing exercise
But at the end of the trip, it was clear that not more than a couple of thousand turned out to protest. There was no pitched battle with the police and Canadians for the most part were welcoming hosts.
We don’t always agree with the United States. But then, I’d be willing to bet that you don’t always agree with your spouse either. In fact, one of the best signs seen in Ottawa was in the hands of a pro-Bush marcher, there protesting the protesters. He summed it up the best with his sign that said: “The only Mad Cow is Carolyn Parrish.”
Pretty fitting isn’t it?
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