Molly Ivins April 2

TORONTO — Oh, no, how embarrassing. Here I am, visiting the neighbors, who inquire — in their calm, polite, rational, Canadian way — if I could possibly explain for them ...

Being Canadian is like living next door to the Simpsons. Here are all these patient, sensible, kind people (I swear, their real national motto is "Now, let's not get excited") living right next to "the States," where some hideously noisy psychodrama is always going on.

Although I have yet to encounter a Canadian who will say so in as many words — they are well-mannered folk — they clearly think we have gone completely around the twist this time.

"Could you explain," asked a gentleman from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., "this congressman — is it DeHay?"

"DeLay," I replied with morbid presentiment.

"Yes, Congressman DeLay of your state of Texas."

Sometimes it's hard to know what to say. Really, really hard. Our Man DeLay, the former bug exterminator from Sugar Land, Texas, has recently distinguished himself by attacking President Clinton for having expressed regret about America's role in the slave trade and for having apologized for sitting by while genocide occurred in Rwanda, the latter event having occurred on Clinton's watch.

Said DeLay of Clinton, according to The New York Times: "Here's a flower child with gray hairs doing exactly what he did back in the '60s: He is apologizing for the actions of the United States wherever he went. It just offends me that the president of the United States is directly or indirectly attacking his own country in a foreign land. It just amazes me."

DeLay, the Republican majority whip, also said: "He didn't quite apologize for the chieftains in Uganda that were selling the blacks to the slave traders, did he? Heh. He didn't talk about what's-his-name, Idi Amin, that killed 500,000 people in Uganda. He didn't apologize for that. You know, he's very quick to apologize for other people's mistakes, and can't apologize for his own, and it comes right down to character."

I winced at the thought that this extraordinary statement has been parsed by Canadians hoping to make some sense of it. Let's see — the American president apologized for America's role in the slave trade, and he expressed regret for having let the genocide in Rwanda go on without much interference. And the congressman finds this offensive.

Uh, I said alertly. Well. The congressman is not expected to go into the diplomatic field any time in the near future.

"Ah," said the Canadian politely, "I see."

Actually, I don't. I utterly fail to see how apologizing for America's role in the slave trade can be construed as attacking our country. And I cannot think of a single historical lesson that has been more emphasized in the 50 years since the Holocaust than that civilized nations must not let genocide occur without attempting to do something about it.

And by the way, Clinton was never a '60s flower child. By all accounts and records, he was a politically ambitious young man from at least high school on.

"Yours is a curious country," observed a television producer here, in mild Canadian fashion, "more concerned about secondhand smoke than guns." The events in Jonesboro, Ark., have of course not gone unremarked by our benevolent neighbors.

Uh.

Well. Sure. Gun's don't kill — children do.

As for our current obsession, most Canadians are so embarrassed by the whole tawdry mess that they are reluctant even to ask about it. "It couldn't happen here," said a book publisher with a mild Canadian twinkle. "Canadian politicians don't have sex."

Canadians themselves often observe that much of their national sense of identity stems from defining themselves as "not like the States." Some of them describe themselves as the proverbial flea next to the elephant or regret their relative insignificance to the bigger, richer, more go-go States.

But Alan Gregg, a sort of Canadian David Frost, said of this phenomenon: "There's actually a fair amount of moral superiority in our way of contrasting ourselves to the States. The implication is always: We wouldn't have gotten ourselves involved in Vietnam because we are so peaceful; we wouldn't have race troubles because we are so tolerant. We're a bit smug, actually. It's a bad failing." Canadians, unlike DeLay, do not hesitate to examine their national conscience.

The resentments harbored by the World's Best Neighbors are often to be found under that notoriously bland headline, "Canadian Trade Talks Continue." You may recall that last year, Canadian salmon fisherman finally took action after seven years — seven years! — of trade talks that were supposed to iron out respective fishing rights on the West Coast.

Canada is, of course, enjoying a veritable Renaissance in the arts, with Canadian film and literature flowering in splendid profusion. This is because the Canadians, in their practical Canadian way, set up a commission on the arts in the '50s and decided to invest some money in them, with spectacular results. Unfortunately, many of their films can't even get distribution in Canada because Americans own the distribution system. If you want to see a Canadian in a state that might be described as "somewhat angry," find one in the film business and mention the name Jack Valenti. Canadian Trade Talks Continue in that regard, too.

The long, festering problem of Quebecois separatism has taken a remarkable turn recently. One Jean Charest, head of the Progressive Conservative Party, turns out to be the one Quebecois leader capable of stemming the separatist forces. So, he has just agreed to leave his national post and return to Quebec as leader of the Liberal Party (don't ask me how these things get arranged — Canada is sometimes mysterious), thus saving the country and destroying his own promising career. Although there is a general approbation for M. Charest for having made this sacrifice, there is also a widespread sentiment that as a decent citizen he really had no choice and so too much of a fuss shouldn't be made over him!

Should one have a Clintonian Moment on the foreign soil of Canada and actually utter something vaguely critical about one's own nation (say, referring to Our Nation's Capitol as "stark, raving bonkers"), Canadians immediately rush to console the distressed American by reflecting that they, too, have been known to have peculiar things happen in their political life. Uh. Well, there was this senator quite notorious for spending a lot of time in Mexico and not attending to business at all. Quite Shocking. But after some citizens showed up at the capitol to lampoon the fellow by wearing sombreros and playing mariachi music, he naturally had the decency to resign.

My question is this: Is there any way we could put Canadianism into pill form so Americans could take it regularly? The pacific, benevolent effects of regular doses of Canadianism cannot be overestimated. We would unquestionably be a better people for it. And now I'm headed back to Texas, where no one ever, ever worries if perhaps we might be slightly dull compared with our neighbors.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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