New World Blogger

In a wildly entertaining episode, character Bill O'Reilly from Fox News called the Globe and Mail a "far-left" newspaper, dismissing it as "the most ridiculous item of the day." In response, Globe and Mail columnist John Doyle responds to the charges, and to the onslaught of criticism that followed from the well-informed viewers of Fox News (via Electrolite:

"But the very idea that The Globe and Mail is "far left" only proves my point that the Fox News Channel is the most hilarious thing on American TV since Seinfeld. When we get to see it, we'll decide if, like Seinfeld, it's about nothing.

Spurred by O'Reilly's remarks, dozens of Fox News viewers wrote to me...In an nice touch, a man from somewhere-in-the-USA opened by cheerfully calling me "sonny bub" and, after some confusing name-calling that involved the word "intellectual," he rose to a great rhetorical flourish -- he asked if I had served in Vietnam!"

Hmmm...I'm glad to see that Fox News viewers are kept well informed enough of the global situation to know which countries do and do not engage in wars...

But on a serious note, I do disagree with Doyle on one thing. A rift between the comedic show Fox News and the Globe and Mail should not exemplify or embody a rift between Americans at large and Canadians. That would simply collectively dismiss the pool of intelligent and well-informed Americans out there.

And although the anti-American sentiment runs high in the world right now, it's important to remember that a people as a whole must not be dismissed, no matter what the majority of persons do. Otherwise we are making the same kind of "cultural superiority" argument that has been forced by those whom we would criticize. It's true, many Americans need to realize that the US borders are not the edge of the earth beyond which things fall apart -- although things frequently do fall apart.

But I've encountered some intelligent and well-informed Americans in my time here in the US, and while there is a very marked deficiency in awareness of global events, those of us who would call themselves "more aware" can all contribute to fighting this deficiency, rather than judge. As this blog intends to do.
The Globe and Mail