A Friend In Need.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Canada: The Yahoo news headline for Tuesday's AP story covering President Bush's visit suggested that he'd gone north to "repair relations."

The implication, of course, was that our oafish leader had split the countries asunder. But what is the truth?

Anti-Americanism is rife in Canada, and much of it, predictably, is directed at Bush. On Tuesday, as he traveled across Ottawa, activists planned to follow, hectoring all the way about the war in Iraq. (Don't these people have jobs?)

So what else is new? A couple of years ago, an aide to then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien called the president a "moron." Then there was the open microphone that caught a member of Parliament supposing Bush to be a "bastard."

Chretien himself once hinted that the U.S. deserved 9-11 because of its wealth and arrogance.

But anti-Americanism north of the border preceded Bush's presidency. Much of Canada has long resented its southern neighbor.

More than 50 years ago, historian Frank Underhill was writing that the Canadian was "the model anti-American, the archetypal anti-American." As one wag once put it, Canadians are best at proudly declaring they're not Americans.