Columnist Alan Fotheringham once wrote that if you read a good column, rest assured the author stole the idea from someone else.

So, with that in mind, I offer the following from Williams Lake Tribune columnist Diana French: “I’d believe the recession was over if the people saying it weren’t the same ones who didn’t see it coming.”

Fotheringham once likened editorial writers to those who come in after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.

He also said it’s the editor’s job to separate the wheat from the chaff, and print the chaff.

Okay, this may be starting to chafe, but I’m going back to Diana French. She points out that U.S. president Barack Obama is getting all kinds of death threats and says there are similarities to the “environment of hate” in the U.S. before John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

“Canadian political parties don’t like each other much either but we don’t threaten to kill our leaders,” she writes. “Instead we have right-wing Bill Vander Zalm and leftie Carole James cozying up to fight the HST and the Conservatives in Ottawa accepting support from the socialist NDP. I prefer our way.”

Hear, hear.

We are a lot more civil in this country, even though we have many here who would like us to be more like our cousins to the south.

Just take a look at the craziness that is ensuing down there over Obama’s plan to provide health care for every American. There are senators and congressmen, who one would think are a step above being fodder for Jeff Foxworthy, screaming that government death squads will be the result of universal Medicare.

It is interesting to watch some of the debate south of the border.

Here in Canada, we find it hard to imagine living without universal health care, even though it is definitely under attack in this country. The U.S. president wants it for his constituents.

—Bill Phillips,

Prince George Free Press