Opinion: No Canada
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Silly arguments for and against potential nominees are part of the circus surrounding a Supreme Court selection. So far Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s suitability has been questioned because of her weight and diabetes, and there are murmurs about the fact that Jews and Catholics loom large in the talent pool in which President Obama is fishing, raising the possibility that the Supreme Court that convenes in October will have only one Protestant justice (John Paul Stevens).
The nuttiest objection so far is that Obama should think twice before nominating Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm because she was born in Canada. Accoring to the CanWest News Service, “several
U.S. media outlets have speculated that the governor’s Canuck roots could create an unwanted political distraction for Obama, who can choose from an abundance of qualified candidates actually born in the U.S.A.”
My first reaction was that this was bogus news, a Canadian version of the traditional “Area Man” story localizing a national (or in this case international) story. But CanWest offers examples of truly bizarre musings by American news outlets about the liability representd by Granholm’s birth in Vancouver, B.C. A story in the Detroit News, for example,asserts: “Another negative could be that Granholm is not a natural-born citizen, having been born in Canada. The last justice who was a naturalized citizen was Felix Frankfurter, who was born in Austria and served on the court from 1939-62.”
It’s hard to believe Obama would allow himself to be hosed by this sort of xenophobia. It’s not just that America is routinely described as “a nation of immigrants.” Canadians, particularly Canadians who have taken on U.S. citizenship, are far less foreign to many Americans than their own countrymen -- assuming, that is, that anyone knows the people in question are Canadians. Twenty years ago, an MTV faux quiz show called “Remote Control” had a category called “Dead or Canadian?” Of course, someone can be both, but living or dead Canadians are often assumed to be Americans -- a sore point for Canadian nationalists, who are always sore in my experience.
If Granholm is nominated and anti-Canadian prejudice rears its head (as Sarah Palin would say), Obama should line up some Canuck-Americans to testify on her behalf before the Judiciary Committee, including Michael J. Fox, some National Hockey League stars, Paul Shaffer, Neil Young, Lorne Michaels, Mortimer Zuckerman and John Roberts (the CNN anchor, not the chief justice). As Bob and Doug McKenzie would say, the Detroit News handicappers should take off, eh.