Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Who is the prime minister of Canada?

(I would like to welcome Daily Kos readers to The Reaction. I hope you enjoy your stay here. If you'd like to know more about us, click on the banner above to go the main page. -- MJWS)

See if you can spot the gross ignorance/indifference. This is from Scott McClellan's Tuesday press briefing:

Q: Can you talk a little bit more about Cancun and the other side of the talks, with Canada -- border, immigration? Are those high priorities?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this will be -- you're talking about Canada? I mean, the President had a -- first of all, had a good discussion with Prime Minister Martin [sic] yesterday. That was a call that Prime Minister Martin [sic] initiated, really to thank the President on behalf of the people of Canada for the efforts of our coalition forces, our American forces, part of the coalition, to rescue the hostages last week, including one Canadian.

But I think that when you're looking at this trip, first of all, it was last year in Waco when the three leaders -- Prime Minister Martin, at the time, President Fox and President Bush -- announced a new initiative, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, among the three nations. And this is a way to build upon our efforts to really make sure that North America is more integrated and remains competitive in this global changing economy that we live in. So they're going to talk about concrete ways that we can move forward on the security and prosperity partnership. And the President looks forward to those discussions with the other two leaders.

In terms of Canada, this will be the President's first meeting with Prime Minister Harper since he took office -- he had met with him briefly previously when he was the opposition leader. And each of these relationships -- the relationship with Mexico, the relationship with Canada -- is a unique relationship. We've had good relations with both countries. And the President looks forward to visiting with Prime Minister Martin [sic] and strengthening our relations. So he very much looks forward to this trip.

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I wonder what McClellan's boss, President Clinton, thinks of this. Does he know the name of our prime minister? Our current prime minister? McClellan got it right once in four tries. One reference to Martin was right -- see the second paragraph.

But so much for Harper's Bush-friendly attempts to cozy up to the U.S. You'd think the president's press secretary and chief spokesman would know the name of our recently-elected Conservative prime minister, eh?

We Canadians never much appreciate the ignorance and indifference of our American friends, but ignorance and indifference inadvertently directed at Prime Minister Harper, of whom I am not a supporter (see here and here), leaves me quite amused.

(Thanks for the tip, Steve!)

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