Lies and the Lying Right-Wing American Liars Who Tell Them

[morgan_dhu]

I think I start to understand how many Americans must feel watching their news media.

This week, the CBC newsmagazine program the fifth estate is airing a report on the state of the American media from a Canadain news perspective. The report is called Sticks and Stones, and is described thusly by the network: The United States is in the midst of a very un-civil war. It's a war of words that's pitting conservative against liberal, that's already divided the country into red and blue. The new gladiators are commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter and their forum is the television studios of networks like Fox. It's loud, it's raucous, but does it have anything to do with the truth?

Some of the material covered was familiar to me from my faithful viewing of the only U.S. "news programming" my ex-pat American partner will allow on the T.V. in his presence, Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

What brought it all home to me was an interview with American right-wing pundit Ann Coulter. The reporter, CBC journalist Bob McKeown (who has also worked for U.S. networks CBS and NBC), initiated a discussion about her on-air comments concerning Canada spoken on an American T.V. newsmagazine program Hannity and Colmes: they need us...they are lucky we don't roll over one night and crush them....they are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.

Part of Coulter's response was a lecture on how Canada had been such a stalwart ally of the U.S. until now, and that our disloyalty (in declining to join the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq, not that she described it in those words) is fair justification for anti-Canadian sentiment. To bolster her argument, she listed all of the wars Canada had supposedly "supported" the U.S. in, beginning with WWII (how could we have supported U.S. involvement when we were there several years before the U.S., supporting Britain?), Korea (we were there as part of a U.N. action, not as support for the U.S.) and Vietnam.

McKeown politely informed Coulter that Canada had not sent military forces to Vietnam. She told him that it had. He replied that no, we really had not been involved in Vietnam. She insisted that he was wrong, and said that she would send him the proof after the interview was completed. He basically shrugged and moved on. Of course, McKeown noted following that segment of the report that neither Coulter nor her staff ever got back to the CBC with their supposed proof - and that Canada had not sent troops to Vietnam.

But it hit hard. If this woman could take part in an interview for a Canadian audience and shamelessly insist that she was right and the Canadian reporter (who is actually of an age to remember the war, having been a pro football player in the early 70s) correcting her about his own country is wrong... then she could lie to anyone about anything.

But I guess that's really not so remarkable after all. It's just a shock to see it, rather than hear or read about it.

Comments

[victoriacatlady.livejournal.com]

every bit of evidence at my disposal indicates that there are significant cultural differences between Canadians and Americans. The differences do tend to be subtle - my ex-pat American partner, who has lived in Canada now for six years, keeps telling me that the differences become more obvious to him the longer he's here.

I suppose I'm also an ex-pat, though I've never used that word for myself. I came to Canada from the U.S. in 1972 and have been here ever since.

Your partner is quite right; I've also seen those subtle differences. When I first came here, all I saw was that different look of the money and a few pronunciation differences. Then I gradually became aware of more. The most significant one, for me at least, is that in the States I felt constantly under attack. When I've gone to visit relatives there occasionally, that feeling came back, so I don't think it was a matter of my immaturity in 1972. (Mind you, I was immature.) It seems that everyone fears that someone -- anyone -- else might attack them, and thus they look at, well, me as a potential enemy. (And at other people too, of course.) When I came here I gradually, gradually began to drop my shields.

Interestingly, I was talking to a man from Europe a few months ago, and he said he felt the same difference between there and here -- with Canada being the place where he felt the constant pressure of fear that I feel in the U.S.