Acceptable Vitriol

As Paul Schneidereit points out (in the Halifax paper; H/T ES), in Canada you can be as nasty as you wannabe, provided it's a leftist kind of nasty:

The vociferous — and at times unhinged — attacks by critics on the proposed new Sun TV News channel, or "Fox News North" as its detractors like to call it, are really about censorship.

Yes, it’s true the potential new channel has Kory Teneycke, Stephen Harper’s former director of communications and now Quebecor’s new vice-president of business development, behind the application to the CRTC.

So what? No law forbids conservatives from starting TV news channels.

Critics say the channel will spew "American-style" right-wing hatred, citing as an example — who else? — Fox News and its brand of "propaganda" that has "poisoned" U.S. politics.

Well, I don’t recall U.S. politics, or TV coverage of many bitterly partisan struggles, being all that genteel prior to Fox’s arrival. And though there’s no question that U.S. cable TV news and commentary today can be harder-edged than what is the norm here in Canada, to label Fox News as the sole source of overheated political commentary is ridiculous.

Why? Because there’s certainly no lack of excessive vitriol on the left in America. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, anyone?

(Or in Canada, for that matter. Heather Mallick, anyone?)

Um, no thanks. We've had quite enough of that nasty piece of business--enough to last at least a lifetime or two.