Well, seeing the hypocrite Obama Hussein, er, Hussein Barack, um, well, you know that guy with three years of Senate experience who thinks he should be the leader of the free world, squirm over the NAFTA kerfluffle is quite entertaining.

So, the plan is to mend our relations with the world by unilaterally repudiating a multilateral treaty? Yeah, that will work. And I guess not being a lying politician (sorry for the redundancy) isn’t the kind of change Mr. Obama is talking about. Hell, I already had him pegged for a Carter-like weasel anyway.

No, what has been great has been the reaction up north. Our Canadian cousins are calling Barack out on his double talking, and the Obama-maniacs are taking it rather poorly. Noam Scheiber, Obama’s chief economist, wonders: What is it with these Canadians? Are they running some sort of entrapment operation up there? Why do they keep trying to torpedo Democratic candidates?”

HaHa! Yeah, just what are those wacky Canucks up too? Trying to get McCain elected?

Nah, Daniel Drezner has got it all figured out:

Based on my extensive experience with the people of the Great White North, I’ll be happy to answer Scheiber’s question. All understanding about Canadians are based on based on three very simply rules of thumb:

1) Canadians are the most polite people on earth. Really, compared to Americans, it’s just embarrassing at times. Canadians never lose their temper in meetings, ever. This is deceptive, however, because…..

2) Canadians are also the most passive-aggressive nationality on earth. For their entire lives, Canadians have had to cope with the fact that everyone assumes they’re essentially just like Americans — including Americans. The best way to make a Canadian blow a gasket is to mistake them for an American. There are other dyads that have this kind of dynamic as well (Russia-Ukraine, Australia-New Zealand), but among Canadians it leads to this kind of resentment boiling just beneath the surface that, if ever unleashed, would look like a scene from 28 Days Later.

This has a profound effect on Canadian behavior vis-a-vis the rest of the world, because just when you think a Canadian is on your side, s/he does something that completely gums up the works of a policy initiative. In the case of Canadian-American relations, this is compounded by the final rule….

3) Canadians are really schizophrenic about American attention. On the one hand, countries that are the focus of lots of American attention don’t necessarily fare all that well. Canadians like the fact that their country is often below the radar.

That said, I’m always surprised when, every four years, Canadians ask me, “So will Canada be an issue in the presidential campaign?” Every time, I say, “no chance in hell.” Clearly I’ve been proven wrong this year, but this is because the Canadians themselves lengthened the news cycle.

So to answer Noam’s question: the Canadians are doing what they’re doing because they don’t want any Americans taking Canada for granted. But they’ll do it as politely as possible.

Try applying these rules whenever one deals with Canadians — they’re easy, and fun!

I basically gave you lazy people who won’t follow a link all of Mr. Drezner’s piece (hope he forgives the violation of fair use), but click the link anyway because the comments are quite entertaining as well.

And to my Canadian buds here in Korea all I can say is pretty good stuff, eh?