Wikileaks: Canadian TV Irked US Diplomats

American diplomats stationed in Ottawa weren't happy with what they saw on TV, according to cables released by WikiLeaks. Shows featuring "nefarious" American officials plotting evil deeds against their northern neighbor show "the kind of insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada," one diplomat wrote. Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" because they feel their country "is condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the US ‘Batman," the diplomat wrote.

One cable briefing George W. Bush before a visit to Canada in 2004 noted that the country feared it was being frozen out of the alliance of English-speaking nations because of its refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times reports. At least one Canadian official shared the diplomats' concern about anti-American feelings in Canada: after being shown video of a crying teenage Canadian detainee at Guantanamo, the director of Canada's security service said it would "no doubt trigger ‘knee-jerk anti-Americanism’ and paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty." (More Canada stories.)