When I care what’s said on The Daily Show. Or for that matter, when I care about photos like this…
… making the email rounds.
Get a grip, people.
(BTW – if US “respect” for our military is your hot button, then this is a hell of a lot more concerning.)
The last word on this comes from Alex,in the comments;
I don’t find their comments particularly offensive, and I’m a serving member who’s lost personal friends in this war. They’re right – it’s pathetic that we have to consider pulling out just so we can recuperate. We should have never allowed the military to degrade that far.
The thing that infuriates me is the smug hypocrisy of the idiots who are most loudly complaining about this. They’re the same people who will will take any opportunity to make insulting jokes about Americans. They’re the same clowns who would gladly vote for a funding cut to the CF so that they can plant more trees in downtown Toronto. Yet they have the nerve to bitch and complain when some Fox talking-heads make a crack at our expense? It’s mind-blowingly asinine.
This was humor. It was an entertainment show. Not journalists, entertainers.
This is nothing compared to what Canadians say about Americans all the time. Americans poke fun at what they consider their Canadian friends.
Our politicians and media poke fun at what they perceive to be our hated enemies.
This is another tempest in a teapot.
Those who are offended by this nonsense, deserve to be. Grow up!
Even more basic; not one person here or anywhere has a “right” to not be offended, Princess. The “right” to not be offended is imaginary, and a big part of what is wrong with the world today, Nancy. There is no “right” to apologies either, Margaret.
If you do not like what they said on Fox, you can piss and moan like an impotent jerk if you want to.
Hello, people, let’s get a life, eh. Because something is on Foc News Channel doesn’t make it news. The Red Eye is nothing more than an air time filler for insomniacs who are tines od infomercials. Are you people worried that our defecswe policy will be changed because of a comedian’s wit or lack thereof?
Lest we cast stones too fast, may I remind you of great Canadian symbols such as the Chicken Cannon on the Royal Canadian Air Farce? Or any one of a gazillion other bits of “humour” the Canadian military has had to endure.(Been there, done that.)
Sticks and stones, eh.
Righteous indignation: the Canadian national sport. Gotta hand it to Mackay though; I haven’t seen a cabinet minister this lathered up since Brian Tobin, and he was the master.
Does stoicism have any value whatsoever in postmodern Canada? As much as I’d love to blame feminazis for this I think we need to have some sorta Truth and Manning The F*ck Up Commission.
Modeled after the postwar de-Nazification program, the Truth and Manning The F*ck Up Commission would assign every Canadian male a nanciness score from 0 to 5, with 0 being Canadian Tire Guy and 5 being…let’s make it 0 to 4 and – I’m really stumped for a man man here…meh, call them all nancy boys, let the chips fall where they may.
Amen again, ET…
Wow! I’m really surprised at all the SDA regulars who are so offended here. Please grow a spine. Gawd!
Redirect your whining to, well, all your fellow Canadians who, like the Phantom reminds us, made so that Federal governments (Mostly Liberal) were elected and dismantled our military in front of our eyes for decades.
Almost every night, John Stewart or Colbert take little shots at Canada…But they’re so cool and popular right?
Red progressive Tories you all!!!
Amen again, ET…
Wow! I’m really surprised at all the SDA regulars who are so offended here. Please grow a spine. Gawd!
Redirect your whining to, well, all your fellow Canadians who, like the Phantom reminds us, made so that Federal governments (Mostly Liberal) were elected and dismantled our military in front of our eyes for decades.
Almost every night, John Stewart or Colbert take little shots at Canada…But they’re so cool and popular right?
Red progressive Tories you all!!!
First, I agree with Alex.
Second, this is the umpteenth time in the last few weeks that people have their panties in a knot over a joke. Who cares what you think is funny or not! If you think it’s funny then laugh, if not then suck it up!
Canadians are reacting exactly as any American would expect us to react. South Park has Canadians nailed to a tee, we sound like a bunch of children who have had our feelings hurt, throwing a tantrum while everyone else laughs at us.
“That’s it, go ahead and run. Run home and cry to mama!” – Ash
I think it’s not so much ‘feeling offended’ over any insults to out military. As others in this thread have pointed out, it’s our automatic anti-Americanism.
It’s not about support for our military. The Liberals and NDP do NOT, repeat, DO NOT, support our military. They’ve never supported it financially and they certainly don’t support its activities. Oh – other than shovelling snow or helping out in floods.
CBC, CTV – all are basically anti-American. I long ago stopped watching both because I couldn’t stand the relentless hostility to anything American, the jokes, the sniggers, the insults.
Just as I stopped watching Royal Cdn Air Farce for the same reasons.
It’s the Liberal strategy; constant anti-Americanism. This is just being used as an opportunity for them to ‘do the usual’. But it has nothing to do with their having any commitment to or support of, our military.
The problem is our reaction. Not a 3:00am talk show joke.
I couldn’t agree more, Kate. Thanks for posting this. Canadians were making fun of the Canadian military long before Red Eye.
Our guys are awesome, but there are only 1,000 of them on the ground in Afghanistan. Last I heard the US had 30,000.
I couldn’t agree more, Kate. Thanks for posting this. Canadians were making fun of the Canadian military long before Red Eye.
Our guys are awesome, but there are only 1,000 of them on the ground in Afghanistan. Last I heard the US had 30,000.
The “Canadian” comments on the CTV segment concern me a helluva lot more than Gutman’s. They’ve got little to whine about when it comes to someone else’s maturity of expression and ignorance. Is the collective age of the average Canadian reading and commenting on Canadian online news sites greater than 15? Seems doubtful.
People including myself are probably pissed off because of the flagged draped coffins coming home. I can enjoy a good joke about our military and our country as well as anyone, but this is disrespectful to our war dead. For the record none of Alex’s comments applies to me.
Cheers
We’ve got all kinds of Canadian lefties who cheer the deaths of Canadian soldiers. We have a Canadian blogger, ‘Canadian Cynic’, who posted a F**K YOU message to a Canadian mother whose soldier son was killed. Spread the rage around, don’t waste it on a TV clown.
Sorry to go OT
Anyone else see this story?
mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/196925.php
Video: Taliban Threaten to Behead Pro-Taliban Canadian “Journalist”
As an American, I can state that I love Canada. But I do have to take a second and address the issue by many Canadian posters who do not seem to get the idea of “satire”.
Greg Gutfeld, while a talking head, is an entertainer. He’s a former comedian, which means he will make jokes. And with Red Eye being a show that is a satire of all things political (Hello? Avenue Q puppets as a guest?!), it is natural for some jokes about Canada to come out.
I don’t begrudge those who are offended by it, but I would take a few moments and watch more of Red Eye before demanding apologies. I mean, hell, they skewer Barack Obama more than anyone else.
All I understand is if someone is going to cut off my head with a kitchen knife anyone there with a gun and a shoulder patch is my friend.
We can’t demand an apology with a straight face.
Bic, The Fox News clowns may write for huffypoo, they may be a bunch of left wing goofs, but their mockery carries the sting of truth. It IS a joke for a major country’s military to have to take a break from fighting a bunch of freaking HILLBILLIES because they ran out of men.
Luxembourg has more guys and more stuff than we do. Not better guys (by a freakin’ long shot), just more.
Next time you think about that and it torques you off, thank a Liberal voter.
And thank our media, CTV specifically. You know that the longest combat shot in history was made by Cpl. Robert Furlong of the PPCLI in Afghanistan? Well, it was. And you did NOT hear that on CTV, nor Global, nor the CBC.
phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/2006/05/longest-combat-shot-in-history-finally.html
I heard about it in Soldier of Fortune. Yes, the AMERICAN “gun nut” magazine. Here is that article reprinted.
http://arlloyd2.tripod.com/sof.html
This feat of arms did not see the light of day in Canadian media until 2006 when Maclean’s finally got around to noticing. That article is linked at my blog post above.
To this day nobody in the Canadian media knows nor gives a sh1t from one week to the next what’s going on overseas with the Forces. Their reporting is limited to mentioning when we lose somebody.
CTV has no right to open their mouth at all. Their boys in Ottawa did this, and they know it.
You want to be outraged about something, be outraged we don’t have f-ing helicopters, so our guys keep getting blown up by roadside bombs. That is a f-ing outrage.
Guy at work was all up in arms over this today.
Until I asked him if it wasn’t Rick Mercer “Talking to Americans” that he was laughing at on youtube the week before. Then he got very defensive.
Hey — it’s comedy. If you care about this, you’re too stupid to apologize to.
I didn’t laugh, but I’m not losing a second’s worth of sleep, either.
Our soldiers might be the toughest in the world, but there’s not a hell of a lot of them.
Even more basic; not one person here or anywhere has a “right” to not be offended, Princess. The “right” to not be offended is imaginary, and a big part of what is wrong with the world today, Nancy. There is no “right” to apologies either, Margaret.
If you do not like what they said on Fox, you can piss and moan like an impotent jerk if you want to.
I hope some Canadian boys just back from Afstan meet up with Mr. Gutfeld and explain to him, in very simple terms, what our troops are doing over there.
After the CBC apologizes for years of smearing the USA,
then maybe we will be in a position to ask an apology from Fox.
After the CBC apologizes for years of smearing the USA,
then maybe we will be in a position to ask an apology from Fox.
Posted by: Friend of USA at March 23, 2009 5:22 PM
BINGO!!!
You can add CTV and every newspaper in the country to that list as well.
Way to go Phantom. I’m not the only one that ‘thanks’ the LIDDLE THIEF FROM SHAWINIGAN for his impact on our military. We will never know how many fathers, husbands, sons and yes wives and daughters, would be still breathing, laughing and attending to the everyday tasks had they been mobile in helicopters in ‘theatre’ in Afghistan. Those that have voted liberal in the last couple of decades have some ‘splaining to do.
The pop culture illiteracy of my fellow conservatives is an embarrassment.
RedEye is one of the only even sort of conservative comedy shows in history, let alone airing today.
Gutfeld is an anti-PC, anti-liberal guy who can be laugh out loud funny.
He was making fun of a COMMENT MADE BY A CANADIAN OFFICER that Canadian equipment sucks.
Well: Canadian military equipment DOES suck, and everyone knows it.
Our armed forces do amazing stuff with ancient equipment. But they shouldn’t have to.
The Canadian govt should be gutting the HRCs, the Indian This and the Immigrant That and the Women’s Whatever Ministry, and buy our soldiers new equipment.
INSTEAD of making an international incident out of a joke made by an on-side guy at 3AM.
Please please conservatives: do NOT comment on books you haven’t read, and movies and tv shows you haven’t seen.
It does more damage than you can believe.
Now, now Kate. You do care what the Daily Show says. One of my readers caught this:
Strack Attack said…
Kate from SDA: “I’ll Care About What’s Said On “Red Eye” When I care what’s said on The Daily Show.”
Is that so?
May 4, 2004, Kate: “Does Stewart – who has taken to ridiculing military losses in Iraq, while guffawing Chomsky admirers affirm his wit – have the balls to bring someone on his show who both served with and has openly challenged the fitness of John F. Kerry to serve as Commander In Chief?
I suspect not.
But, I think this would be a worthy internet challenge to mount. Email the Daily Show here.”
Link:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/000272.html
I’m a Canadian who would love to see the CBC axed, has no time for anti-Americanism, thinks Dubya was a pretty good president and believes that the Human Rights Commissions are a waste of money and an attack on our freedom of speech.
That said… these guys were not funny and they were first rate arseholes. It wasn’t satire, it was rude and it was insulting to the Canadian men and women fighting in Afghanistan. It also showed that they didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
I guess I’m with the liberals on this one as well.
Charles Adler referred to this item on his talk show this afternoon.
Everyone take a deep breath….there….exhale.
1. who give a rat’s ass what some metrosexual, mamby pamby(did u listen to their voices?)media whores say about our troops?
2. mr dithers and d1ckface cretin bear most of the blame for most of the deaths in afghani(cut, cut, cut)…was it not d1ckface cretin who sent them over there with the Iltis jeep as their primary mode of transportation? And was it not the robber baron dithers who thought the solution was the “death wagon” bought from the Germans?
Bottom line(according to my conversation with a Sgt Major who has done 2 tours)is that the CF has been pushed to the limit, and they need a time out. If it takes some jerkoffs from the USA to point this out…..so be it!
My brothers and I served for over 50 years, and none of us are offended by said comments.
It is insensitive in wartime to make comments at the expense of those in the military and their loved ones. Some jokes are just not funny, when you know that people are suffering.
Am I offended? Sure.
Does this need to be a big deal? Nope. Our lust for american bashing is really what is at show here, how many internet forums is this being discussed where the majority of the responses are “stupid Americans” or “I hate those idiot Americas”
What was said is disrespectful and in bad taste, but is created and consumed for an audience. At least they don’t have elected officials calling their allies assholes and idiots like we Canadians do…
From a comment at Hot Air:
“For those Canadians who think this is somehow bad, I shall remind them of the 1990s CBC documentary “The Valor and the Horror” in which they called Canadian soldiers and airmen murderers while ignoring those of the Nazis, including the Holocaust. Did the CBC ever apologize? Not even close. – KillerKane”
Gutfield gave an apology, and I am glad he did. Perhaps he sees another side of this Afghanistan ‘thing’ now. Can’t hurt.
This isn’t about FOX NEWS, though.
It is about ‘Red Eye’ and Gutfield, and his panel that night.
CTV and CBC would like to make it about FOX News, and many played along.
Frankly, I never saw how ‘Red Eye’ fit into their programming.
Saw the vid for a few minutes. It disturbed me not because of the content but because they came across as buffoons. It reminds me of CBC stuff; why would u be that way if you weren’t subsidized?
As to content. I thought we were getting out the ‘stan because it was time to get out, not because were all tired ‘n whimpy. The tank biz? Hey Matlock, were the only people in the ‘stan thats got’em.
OK….it is ‘FOX news’ people…..FOX news!!!!!!
Again, who cares about how ‘insenstive’ these idiots are?
As I said earlier, at least we are now talking about this issue…..and the only reason any librano is showing us any crocodile tears is because, deep down inside, they know that the shortcomings of our military can be layed squarely on their laps.
LIBRANOS ARE NOT, NOR HAVE BEEN FOR A LONG TIME, FRIENDS OF THE CANADIAN MILITARY
Kate, the Red Eye crew was just plain IGNORANT. Not funny, not witty, and their insults were not clever enough to be satire.
As Canucks, we mock ourselves, but we don’t ridicule our troops. We speak out on everything else, surely we should speak out on this?
I was disappointed that Monica Crowley, who is usually sharp, would jump on board the Red Eye express to nowhere.
I applaud the Edmonton Comedy Club for cancelling the Benton gig.
“The pop culture illiteracy of my fellow conservatives is an embarrassment.”
TY Kathy
This is exactly what I’m talking about, barring a few ppl around here, I usually feel like I’m a guest on the TV show “Life on Mars”.
This whole thing is getting pathetic. From pathetic as in we have “loaner” tanks but haven’t gotten them in use yet to pathetic as in Rick Mercer now lecturing American comedians as to what is funny.
Yes, it is indeed a tradegy that our troops are dying over there but the jokes weren’t about Canadians dying, it’s about how the Canadian military has had to make do with duct tape and baling wire since PET and his just society thought the military was a waste of time. Anyone who has served in the past 30+ years has seen and heard all the jokes by now. It’s just a shame that people today seem to have long forgotten the 3rd largest allied navy in WWII, or any of the other great contributions our people have made to keep the world safer.
Interesting to see how support for Canadian troops is conditional on this website. Clearly FOX is a higher master.
I saw the same thing when Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener was killed by the IDF, the commenters here were falling over themselves to blame Kruedener for being sent on a UN mission.
KS: “The pop culture illiteracy of my fellow conservatives is an embarrassment.”
—–> It shouldn’t be. When you become so immersed in Fox News and Limbaugh, you forget that somebody disrespecting your own country’s troops, who are at war, is a bad thing.
SDA isn’t the place I’d expect to find disrespect for our soldiers.
Lighten up, you say? Well, Kate wasn’t happy about the Daily Show back in 2004:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/000272.html
“Canada’s favourite pastime: watching what the Americans say about us and going apoplectic when it ain’t slobbering praise.
Some day we’ll grow up.
Posted by: Mississauga Matt at March 23, 2009 2:15 PM”
Geez, those dumb Red Eye jokes about our troops went far beyond your “it ain’t slobbering praise.”
To suggest we need to grow up because we’re outraged at the ignorance displayed is *lame.*
As an aside, what’s with the CTV and Globe and Mail news people assuming that now Obama is President of the USA we Canadians should just follow the USA on issues?
For eg., a question put to Jason Kenney regarding the British MP and Hamas supporter who’s been banned from visiting Canada. Graham Richardson seems to think whatever the USA does should be our policy, too.
Last I checked, we’re a sovereign country!
A lot here don’t seem to get it.We should not be outraged about the fact that some idiot made “rude,insulting” comments about our military,but the fact THAT WE CANUCKS,by electing Lieberals,allowed it to get to the point where it can be made fun of!!!
I spent 12 years flopping around Canada,U.S and overseas in our Airforce,and by luck,ignorance,or God’s hand,attended 36 of my fellow flyers funerals,which just as easy could have been me.
Why.Because we were flying crap shit that even Mexico had got rid of. For anybody out there who remembers,when we got the “first,top of the line” Auroras way back in ’80,they where all ready 3 years out of date.The standing joke at Lockheed in Burbank at the time was,send the Canucks our old P3’s.The Russians will be laughing so hard at them,they won’t be able to come over the top.
Bottom line. Blame the Libs and anybody who voted for them,not our neighbours to the South.
The defining point was when it was declared that Canadians ONLY had mounties on horseback in red tunics……
The US military has not just a lot of respect for CF but welcomes Canadian recruits….bigtime.
I recall during Gulf One, getting hauled in to a very LOUD briefing by as US Colonel.
“YOU will get your **** over and check out these Canadians that showed up here just now and see what they need…..and get it to them STAT. What a pathetic country….don’t be surprised if they need boots. Get them what YOU think they need, not what they have been told they need. These are the best and we are going to need them soon and TAKE SOME ***** BEER.”
The Canucks thought it was Christmas.
It’s astonishing that the CBC could display outrage over this. This is the same network that took a Liberal backbencher who had never been in cabinet and made her a star for her “American bastards” remark and allowed her to stomp on a doll of the U.S. president. And they certainly couldn’t cite his unpopularity as the reason seeing as how this took place before he won his second term.
But for the CBC to show selective outrage over the clips comes by interviewing Canadians concerned comes as no surprise… too bad they couldn’t have done the same by interviewing people from the Chinese Canadian community over Kinsella’s “cat meat” remark.
That picture originally was my Vermont style “Pike fishing” boat, that somebody photoshopped. It is legal to take pike and pickerel by firearm here.
Actually, as an American, I deeply appreciate the Canadian contribution in Afghanistan, and haven’t forgotten that it was a Canadian sniper who holds the record of splashing a Taliban skull right out from under its turban at a distance of 2.5 kilometers.
By the way, I love how Obama sent a letter to President Poutine, of France. I mean Chirac, not realizing that Chirac had been voted out by the french for a more right leaning govt two years ago. This is beyond embarrassing. Can he call Condi Rice for pointers, since it is pretty clear from her comments that she voted for him. I wonder how she feels about that vote now?
Off-topic, kingstonlad said, in part: metrosexual
I have never seen a word as misused on this forum as that one. I wish people would understand what it really means.
This whole sorry debacle infuriates me …. but not for the obvious, imitation patriotic reasons.
Now I’m not a soldier, sailor or airman so I don’t pretend to speak on their behalf. They, however, have my greatest respect and admiration. To be quite honest, I’m not even sure that I’d have the cajones to do what they do on a daily basis.
That being said, I’m sickened and angered at the hypocrites who use this incident to take cheap shots at the Americans in general while hiding behind a “support the troops” facade. The remarks, while idiotic and in extremely bad taste, were not made by the average American, the White House or the US military. They were made by third-rate comedians in the middle of the night.
Where was the outrage when politicians and beaurocrats decimated the military in order to fund their own pet projects?
Why is there no outcry when the left brays incessantly that Canadian soldiers are peace-keepers, not warriors when history clearly shows quite the opposite.
Where is the anger when the media portrays the Afghanistan conflict as illegal, immoral,unnecessary and unwinnable?
Where is the righteous indignation when Jack Layton insists on negotiating with the Taliban?
Why is there no condemnation of politicians who constantly badger the Prime Minister to set a withdrawal date for our troops?
These are just a few examples of disrespecting our troops to a far greater degree than a handful of cretins attempting comedy at 3 in the morning.
It appears that our outrage is misdirected.
MetrosexualS, panty waste, momma’s boys, pasty thigh’ed wimps……whatever…..their opinion counts for NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH….
Will every Canadian who has ever been critical of the US in any way, ever, please STFU about this.
Thank you.
Also, thank you to every Canadian sniper team who has saved American lives in Afghanistan.
And yes I am aware that many Canadians have had the gall to besmirch those fine shooting teams.