Colbert shows Canadian political ad

A Liberal Party ad made its way onto the airwaves. . . in America.

"The Colbert Report" (which airs four nights a week on Comedy Central in the U.S. and the Comedy Channel and CTV in Canada) showed the current ad on the January 17 episode. The ad have a blurry image of Stephen Harper that gets clearer as the voice reads from the Washington Times article from December 2 about Harper.

The most ominous phrase in the ad is "Bush's new best friend is the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader." At the end of the ad, the Liberal Party invites the viewer to "Choose Your Canada."

Media coverage of Harper has sharply increased in the last couple of weeks. Harper has even made the top Google news searches on some days.

Colbert's reference to the ad was skewed around congratulating Canada for getting more into dirty politics (I confess it's difficult to explain Colbert's humor in print; it doesn't translate well because he's so deadpan).

Colbert's coverage aside, the stories on Harper are more of intrigue (who is this guy?) but give no substance behind who he is and what a Conservative government might bring to Canada. One reason is that their only concern is how this might affect America, or more specifically, Bush. That doesn't really inform the public as to what is going on.