Reply #7: Okay now, THIS is a funny read (h/t from Time magazine's TV critic):

[beachmom]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html#report/canada-08OTTAWA136

SUBJECT: PRIMETIME IMAGES OF US-CANADA BORDER PAINT U.S. IN
INCREASINGLY NEGATIVE LIGHT

OTTAWA 00000136 001.2 OF 003

1. (SBU) Summary: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
has long gone to great pains to highlight the distinction
between Americans and Canadians in its programming, generally
at our expense. However, the level of anti-American melodrama
has been given a huge boost in the current television season
as a number of programs offer Canadian viewers their fill of
nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious
deeds in Canada while Canadian officials either oppose them
or fall trying. CIA rendition flights, schemes to steal
Canada's water, "the Guantanamo-Syria express," F-16's flying
in for bombing runs in Quebec to eliminate escaped
terrorists: in response to the onslaught, one media
commentator concluded, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that
"apparently, our immigration department's real enemies aren't
terrorists or smugglers -- they're Americans." While this
situation hardly constitutes a public diplomacy crisis per
se, the degree of comfort with which Canadian broadcast
entities, including those financed by Canadian tax dollars,
twist current events to feed long-standing negative images of
the U.S. -- and the extent to which the Canadian public seems
willing to indulge in the feast - is noteworthy as an
indication of the kind of insidious negative popular
stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada. End
Summary.

Although kind of weird (really? Our State Dept. is worried about plot lines in Canadian television?), I have to agree with the Time critic that this is deliciously snarky writing. He laments that he didn't become a diplomat. :)

Edit: the dispatch was written 1/25/2008 during the Bush Administration. I HOPE the Obama Administration isn't so thin skinned.

His piece is now up:

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/12/02/wikileaks-and-the-canadian-tv-menace/

Best line:

I am starting to develop the theory that the WikiLeaks document dump will produce a rush of applications for State Department jobs. Security concerns aside, the juicy revelations have the effect of making career-diplomat work seem awesome: who knew that the U.S. had a cadre of professionals writing wry, snarky cables from the four corners of the globe? It's like blogging, with job security and benefits!

Anyway, I thought everyone could use the comic relief.