Today President Bush visits our northern neighbor Canada. The Wall Street Journal pointed to a very recent poll by a Canadian group, “Friends of America” which suggests the hyperbole over “America Haters” in Canada is far overblown. Here are some results to the poll which suggests a much different story.

Friends of America, a non-profit organization funded by ordinary Canadians who want to strengthen the Canada / U.S. relationship found widespread support for the U.S. among Canadians. The survey, conducted among a representative sample of 1,000 adults across Canada on November 23 and 24, 2004 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

• 3/4 of Canadians (71%) cite the U.S. as Canada’s closest friend.
• 73% also believe that opposing the policies of the President is not the same as being anti-American.
• Canadians also emphatically agree with the statement, “Deep down, I know that Americans are our closest friends.” Fully two thirds (69%) agree with that statement.
• Two thirds (67%) of Canadians agree that anti-American statements hinder the two countries from resolving problems of mutual concern.
• Canadians have an overall favourable attitude toward the United States, with 60% of Canadians indicating “positive” feelings.
• A full 2/3 of Canadians disagreed with the statement, “It’s cool these days to dislike Americans.”

Overall, Canadians continue to consider Americans their best friends, identifying first and foremost their longstanding and extensive economic and trade relationship but also citing common culture and language as reasons underpinning this friendship. Moreover, not only do most Canadians believe that the people of the two countries have close ties; the majority of Canadians continue to have a favourable impression of the United States as a country.

“I agree with everything he stands for. I voted for him four years ago. But this election was just plain obvious. The choice was to vote for a politician or vote in a President. Kerry had nothing. The polls of people who voted for Kerry found that they voted for him because he wasn’t Bush, which doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t see why people didn’t vote for Bush. I heard, “Well, he went to Iraq and we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction.” What? That’s why you don’t like him. That’s all you got. We’re saving lives here. We liberated 50 million people and we took Saddam out of power.”

His name is Steve Gardner. He’s also known as “The 10th Brother,” as in Band of Brothers. He’s one of two members of Sen. John Kerry’s 12 Vietnam swift boat crew members who refused to stand with Kerry at the Democratic Convention.

Gardner’s story is one that bears telling. He volunteered for the Navy, enlisting on his 18th birthday in February 1966. After training, he was shipped to Vietnam and served for two years as a gunner in the swift boat division. His superior, for four months, was none other than Lt. j.g. John F. Kerry.

“I had confrontations with him there. He nearly got us rammed by the VC one night because he wasn’t watching the helm. I heard the motor coming close, turned on the spotlight, and the boat was only 90 feet away, coming fast. The VC was aiming an AK47 at us. I shot him out of the boat. We pulled a woman and a baby off the boat. Kerry wrote it up that we captured two VC and killed four more on the beach. None of that was true. The only thing true on Kerry’s report was the date. The woman was catatonic and wouldn’t call her baby VC and there were no VC on the beach. If we had seen that report before Kerry sent it up the chain of command, he would have been court-martialed and never allowed to run for office. And that’s just the San Pan incident. There was much more. He is a self-aggrandizing bold-faced liar. I believe he caused the extension of that war.”

Gardner told this story and others to radio stations and he wrote a piece for the local paper. Then, he says, he received a phone call from John Hurley, the veterans organizer for Kerry’s campaign. Hurley, Gardner says, asked him to come out for Kerry. He told Hurley to leave him alone and that he’d never be for Kerry. It was then Gardner says, he was threatened with, “You better watch your step. We can look into your finances.”

Gardner said he received a call from Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Brinkley told Gardner he was calling only to “fact check” the book — which was already in print. “I told him that the guy in the book is not the same guy I served with. I told him Kerry was a coward. He would patrol the middle of the river. The canals were dangerous. He wouldn’t go there unless he had another boat pushing him.”

Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail — by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he’s seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn’t have the money to sue to get the job back.

Epilogue: “I’m broke. I’ve been hurt every way I can be hurt. I have no money in the bank but am doing little bits here and there to pay the bills.” The husband and father of three says he’d do it all over again. He says it wasn’t for politics. It was for America.

Attic Note: If you care to send a letter of protest to Millenium Information Services simply click the link and voice your opinion.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times