Living with Bush’s America

When the American electorate returned George W. Bush for a second term as president, Canadians by and large were aghast. So was most of the world. Never has a U.S. leader been so deeply unpopular abroad. But for Canadians, fated by geography and economics to be tied more closely than anyone else to the world’s only remaining superpower, the prospect of four more years of Bush-style global leadership poses a particularly acute dilemma.

For some Canadians, however, whose voices are disproportionately influential for their numbers, there is really no problem with Bush, but only with a deplorable Canadian anti-Americanism that ranges from the grassroots to parts of the Liberal government in Ottawa. Many newspaper editorialists and media commentators denounced the public expression of anti-Bush sentiments, invariably characterized as anti-Americanism, and advised the government of Canada to get in line with the new reality in Washington—or else.

Business...