Why is everyone beating up on poor Carolyn Parrish for speaking her mind? Parrish became a pariah for commenting “Damn those Americans. Hate those bastards.”

I, for one, am happy when our politicians are truthful about their views. Not that Parrish wanted people to know what she said. She threatened journalists’ ability to report on our democratic institutions if they quoted her.

“If you use it, don’t bother calling here again,” Parrish, Member of Parliament (MP) for Mississauga Centre, told the Globe & Mail. “If you guys want to keep the privilege of working in that area [an area set aside for the press to question politicians] without being held back, I would be very careful with this one.”

After all, what right do Canadians have to know what our politicians are saying?

The real curiosity is why this case created such a controversy. Every newspaper in the nation, it seems, was outraged. But, where has everyone been during the repeated, hate filled, and untruthful anti-American statements that are constantly assaulting Canadians?

Bill Blaikie, MP for Winnipeg-Transcona, makes Parrish seem positively moderate. He opined “George Bush is planning every minute of his life to kill as many Iraqi children as he can in the name of oil or whatever it is that’s really on the agenda.”

Colleen Beaumier, MP for Brampton West-Mississauga, concurred that President Bush was planning “a war on children.” During her recent tour of Iraq, she met with senior Iraqi officials and praised Saddam’s desire to promote democratic reforms – a desire few Iraqi’s have noticed during Saddam’s regime, but, hey, what do Iraqis know compared to Beaumuier’s knowledge of Saddam’s warm and democratic heart after her few day in Baghdad.

CBC’s Newsworld has launched its own Jihad on US media. Newsworld’s “Inside Media,” broadcast Sunday was full of how awful and one-sided the US media is. One panelist said it was virtually impossible to find one story in the US about the anti-war movement.

I flipped the channel to CNN and there on the same Sunday I found a CNN report arguing there was no reliable evidence tying Saddam to al-Qaeda, another report from Arab capitals warning about building anti-US, anti-war sentiment and the dangerous consequences that could result from war, and a report on the growing US anti-war movement even in unlikely places, such as Los Alamos, the home of the United States’ most famous weapons laboratory where the nuclear bomb was developed.

All that, within an hour. I guess Newsworld didn’t think this balanced since no one called George Bush a “moron” and a “child killer.”

Despite the constant anti-American barrage, the Toronto Star was shocked by Parrish’s comments, calling them “crude and rude.” One wonders if the Star’s editorial board reads its own columnists.

The Star’s marquee columnist is Richard Gwyn. He has written that the United States is morally inferior to Canada; he has unfavorably compared George Bush to Saddam Hussein; and he has argued that the United States is attacking Iraq because it is a Muslim country – never mind that the United States was the only nation with the willpower to intervene to stop genocide against Muslims in the Balkans.

I can only assume the Star’s editorial board is deeply confused. Given that it is happy to print high-profile columns claiming the United States is morally inferior, elected a leader worse than Saddam, and wants to kill people simply because they are Muslim, how could Parrish’s comments embarrass anyone at the Star? What’s wrong with hating a morally inferior nation, that wants to kill people because of their religion and is lead a by tyrant worse than Saddam?

None of Gwyn’s characterizations are accurate but if the Star promotes what is in effect hate language, it’s difficult to understand the source of its sudden outrage at poor Parrish’s statements.

I’ve left out a lot of material about hateful language directed at the United States – for example, Prime Minister Chretien’s blaming an “arrogant” west – hint, hint, the United States – for the 9/11 attacks and his former press secretary Francine Ducros’ calling President Bush “a moron.” Durcros, like Parrish, complained about the press reporting the comment.

So once again, why all the piling on Carolyn Parrish when this stuff permeates our airwaves and our Parliament?