Canadian Best Wishes

Consider this "Happy Independence Day!" greeting from one of our good friends in the Canadian press. Typically when I read something like this, I'm strongly tempted to respond with a vigorous, "@#%& you, and the horse you rode in on!" But for some reason this time it only made me giggle. Note just the first three paragraphs:

We can only hope that our American friends enjoy their national holiday weekend. Let them wave their flags, enjoy their picnics and show their love of country, because they need a holiday.

It is disturbing these days for the country’s friends to watch the Great Republic’s politics, to wonder about its economy, to tremble at its deficits, and to shake their heads at its Supreme Court that has struck down corporate contribution limits in politics and reaffirmed the right to bear arms, to the intense joy of the gun lobby.

The United States gave itself the most gifted President in several generations, handed his party a majority in both houses of Congress, only to watch his presidency be swamped by the doleful legacy of the Bush years, a worldwide recession and its parlous aftermath, and a ferocious Republican opposition bent on a search-and-destroy mission of his presidency.

It would appear that the Administration's grand project of recapturing the lost good will of foreign nations is working after all...for Obama, that is. For the rest of the country, I'm not so sure.