A Montana court has granted an injunction to R-CALF, keeping the US-Canadian border closed to Canadian cattle. It's unlikely that any appeal will be heard prior to the scheduled March 7th opening.
Is the decision the result of Paul Martin's botched BMD fiasco? No - but the oncoming freight train of Bush administration indifference to Canadian grievances will be.
Condoleezza Rice has deferred her visit and Paul Martin can't get his calls returned. Martin's flip flopping support for missile defense reminds me about something that David Frum wrote in his book "The Right Man";
Then Arafat made what may someday be reckoned as the most fateful miscalculation of his career. On January 5, 2002, Israeli naval forces intercepted a Gaza-bound merchant ship loaded with fifty tonnes of arms from Iran. Arafat hastily sent Bush a letter denying any involvement in the shipment. Probably Arafat did not even intend his denial to be interpreted literally; he may have written it as a social form, like the phrase I regret in a letter declining an invitation to a wedding or a dinner party. If so, Arafat sorely misunderstood his man. Bush does not lie to you. You had better not lie to him.
I'm beginning to wonder if Paul Martin has just been confined to his compound on 24 Sussex.
Martin has spent his whole life preparing for this moment, and he's turned into a bigger boob than T'Jean.How ignominious for a man thought to have been the brains of the Liberal Party.He's even adopted the Jimmy Carter, bug eyed stare.
Apparently Condi's visit is back on again:
http://tinyurl.com/5e3gd
It could change in the next five minutes, however.
If so, it will go like Bush's trip to france:
Canada: "Yada-yayd-yada-yada"
Rice: nod, nod, nod (thinking when will this guyy finish, can I get out of here?)
Let's call 'em bastards! That oughta help the relationship.
The beef import situation down here is basically this: 1) The smaller beef producers are making money hand over fist right now, so they want the border to remain closed. 2) The larger beef producers want the border to open up, because they need the animals. 3) The US Government is in no real hurry to pressure a fix, because, for a variety of reasons, Canada's importance to us continues to shrink. The puffery of Paul Martin (et. al)hurts Canadians more than anyone else. "Pride goeth before a fall."
In his 3 March column, David Warren tucked this paragraph in at the end:
"I hadn't much to say about Canada's decision to spurn the U.S. offer to include us in their anti-missile programme, so will fit it in a footnote. It is hard to imagine a nation so twisted as to refuse to participate in its own defence. The notion that we prevent the 'militarization of space' by such a gesture is too na�ve to credit as an argument; that we enhance our sovereignty by losing our voice in Washington is too absurd. For short-term political cover, our minority government has smashed what remained of Washington's goodwill, just as the Bush administration's controversial policies are being vindicated around the world. Paul Martin -- surely intelligent enough to know better than he has done -- is a gutless disgrace."
Works for me.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Mar05/index282.shtml