America Vs. Canada
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Canadian columnist's diatribe against Palin stokes anger in the U.S.
Canadian journalist Heather Mallick is facing an ugly onslaught from the U.S. right-wing media and its fans for an online column she wrote maligning Sarah Palin as "white trash."
The Sept. 5 column on CBC.ca, entitled "A Mighty Wind Blows Through the Republican Convention," had already been on the receiving end of vitriol from some Canadian news organizations.
But Fox News picked up on it this week, and unleashed its full fury on Mallick for stating that Palin, the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee, appeals to "the white trash vote" with her "toned-down version of the porn actress look."
Mallick says those comments pale in comparison to the abuse that's come her way in the wake of the column. She's been called a "pig" by Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren, has been branded an insane Pakistani Muslim by commentators on Fox message boards and has received violent and threatening email, some of which include anti-Semitic slurs - despite the fact that she's neither Jewish nor Muslim.
"I'd love to punch you right in your chops and knock every tooth out of your head. Come see me bitch, I have something for you!" someone named Dave Jones wrote in an email to Mallick.
Messages left on the Fox News website also contain a lot of anti-Canadian sentiment.
"Canada is made up of small towns and many if not most trace their ancestry back to their 'redneck cousin' and they still have relatives here in the U.S.," one wrote.
Wrote another, "Those morons up north just can't keep their ignorant mouths shut when it's really none of their socialist business ... the People's Republic of Canada is no friend of the USA!"
The Toronto-based Mallick admits she's been shaken by the violence suggested in hundreds of emails similar in tone to Jones', but adds the messages have simply served to underscore her point about the bigotry and small-mindedness of some Republican supporters.
"The responses to my column proved me correct about the extreme right in the United States: they have a great misogynist rage in them," Mallick said in an interview from Toronto on Saturday.
"The violent and obscene threats against me were one thing - it's easy to filter those - but the anti-Semitic hate mail was very troubling. I am not Jewish but I am honoured to be taken for one. I consider it a great compliment."
The CBC said Saturday it had no plans to remove Mallick's article from its website despite the criticism.
"She's an opinion columnist, she expresses her opinion. Her opinions don't represent the views of CBC in general or CBC News in particular," said spokesman Jeff Keay.
"The people who object to her opinions have an opportunity to comment on the website as they've done."
Mallick was certainly not alone in attacking Palin in the days following John McCain's surprise pick of the Alaska governor as his running mate.
Among many others in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere, Salon.com's Cintra Wilson had a column about Palin that was in the same vein as Mallick's.
"Ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centrefold spread," Wilson wrote. "She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it's easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism."
The rage of women about Palin in the so-called blue states - those that routinely vote Democrat in presidential elections - has, in fact, been well-documented.
"All of my women friends ... were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows," author and political activist Nancy Kricorian told the New York Sun earlier this week.
"People were flipping out. ... Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president - our potential next president."
But the woman-versus-woman slurs haven't just focused on Palin. Van Susteren levelled some Mallick's way when she repeatedly called her a pig while discussing the controversy with the Ottawa Citizen's David Warren on her Fox News Channel show Thursday.
"There's no part of me that thinks this woman published this as part of a grand motive to expose others. I think she just wrote it for selfish reasons and because, as I noted, I think she's a pig," Van Susteren said.
One lone participant on Van Susteren's blog, amid the many cheerleaders, took her to task for the remarks.
"It seems particularly ironic that you decry Mallick's lack of tact/professionalism, etc., when she name-calls by doing precisely the same thing: what sort of journalistic integrity is there in calling someone a pig?" wrote someone named Hope.
The media blog Media Bistro also defended Mallick.
"We kind of think Heather Mallick has some balls to be that snarky in a country that tries to legislate politeness," it wrote.
Mallick was unapologetic about the column Saturday, adding the CBC has been supportive of her right to expression.
"Columnists have been opinionating since newspapers were invented," she said. "And now journalism is online which makes reaction even more hyper than it used to be. I'm a confident writer and some of this new audience is not used to that."
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