Canada Goes Silly Over Sarah

By Doug Draper

Well, Hamilton, Ontario should have no problem getting that NHL franchise now!

And why?  Because according to the top story on the front page of The Hamilton Spectator this April 16, Sarah Palin, the former Alaskan governor who has turned her failed 2008 run for the U.S. vice presidency into a gold mine, has come onside as a booster for the city’s franchise bid.

‘Palin casts her vote for the city’s NHL dream,’ read the gushy headline above a story about Palin’s speech to a sellout audience of more than 900 in the Hamilton area this April 15.

“I’m overlooking Copps Coliseum and I thought, what a great place for an NHL franchise,” the Spectator quoted Palin saying to an adoring crowd that paid $200 a piece to hear her speak at a charity fundraiser in the city long known for its steel mills and love for sports. “You’re all set up for it (and) if I ever meet the president of the NHL, I’ll put a little bug in his ear,” she added as, reportedly, only two protesters, one of them holding a sign reading; “Honk For Our Health Care,” kept vigil outside the banquet centre.”

How sad that a newspaper that has a relatively good reputation compared to so many other failing dailies across the province, makes this its top story on a Friday and leads with Palin’s pandering over the NHL franchise.

Do the editors at the Spectator actually think that Palin is going to give Hamilton’s NHL aspirations a second thought when she’s back down there in the American heartland, working up all those Tea Partiers “clinging (as she puts it) to (their) guns, religion and constitution.”

Did it not occur to them that Palin had staff people doing a bit a ‘googling’ on Hamilton before she arrived so she’d have a few suck-up lines to throw to the locals, including a press that is all too willing these days to role over for that kind of bull?

After all, this is someone who while running for position only a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world, had no idea Canada was part of the North American Free Trade Agreement and who thought that Africa was a country.

But never mind any depth of knowledge or substance when it comes to Palin. She can stand right up in front of a Tea Party rally earlier this April and condemn U.S. President Barack Obama’s signing of an agreement with the Russians to reduce their nuclear arsenals – describing it as treasonous and claiming that no other president in the country’s history would ever contemplate such a thing, while either forgetting or not knowing that one of her political heroes, the late U.S. president Ronald Reagan, spoke repeatedly of us desired to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.

Palin can stand in front of a crowd , as she did during speeches she gave during her presidential run, while someone in the crowd yells out; “he (meaning Obama) should be shot,” and just keep smiling and gesturing to the crowd with that windshield washer blade wave.

Palin, as one Spectator columnist put it, has become a “full-fledged celebrity,” basking in the adoration of fans who could hardly care about substance or her positions on the great challenges the world faces today. She can scribble all the crib notes she wants on the palm of her hands. She can do no wrong.

And maybe, just maybe, if she doesn’t get the nod for a presidential run in her homeland in 2012, she can always come up here and run for prime minister, since there are apparently so many Canadians gushing over her. Perhaps she can show up just in time to help the private interests drive the last spike into that evil system of socialized health care of ours.

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.