Fox News

After a nice March holiday, I'm back once again.

Only a short post today, about a ridiculous situation that is unfolding between the Canadian government and Fox News.

On March 17th, Fox News' late night talk show Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld hosted a four minute discussion about Canada's mission in Afghanistan. But instead of praising Canada's work, they spend most of their time ridiculing the Canadian military and making fun of Canadians. They laughed hard at the suggestion by Canadian Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie that the Forces may need to take a year long break in operations due to equipment and personnel shortages. Greg Gutfeld said that the military “wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white capri pants,”

Fox News is not a very serious station, and this talk show airs late at night when no one is watching. Greg Gutfield actually describes his program as:

"We just sit down and talk about junk. We have no props, no high end production values, no huge guest stars. I am the most inexperienced talk show host in the history of television. I'd describe it as a chat show for miscreants.”

So guess what our government did: they demanded an official apology. Defense Minister Peter MacKay personally responded to Fox News, and the Canadian media made it a front page story. Greg Gutfield, obviously delighted that someone finally took notice of him, responded by writing “My apologies to the Canadian military, they probably could at least beat the Belgians." MacKay got even angrier and the Globe and Mail published a big article titled "Fox News host makes a farce of his apology".

The irony of the situation is that by getting angry at being portrayed as a insignificant little country, we are making ourselves look like a insignificant little country. Because let's face it, only small nations get excited when a Far-Right foreign TV station insults their military. Real powers have other things on their mind.