Canadian conservative radio host and columnist Michael Coren got himself fired after upsetting listeners by staging an apparently too-real sounding fake phone call with a supposedly fat American (from New Jersey).
Yesterday Coren said he feels “rather liberated (to have) my evenings back.”
“It does sadden me, however, that the sort of people who routinely blame starvation in Africa and Asia on the victims become so upset over the mockery of an obviously staged obese American,” Coren said.
“This is the hypocrisy that I was trying to expose. It seems I succeeded. It was also just very, very funny! If only the professionally offended would become so upset over the homeless, the war in Iraq and general injustice.”
This is what they call a conservative in Canada? Damn, we gotta get us some of those.
What a terrific gag. What’s wrong with exposing hypocrisy? Perhaps he staged his firing, too. Canadians like this sort of poking stuffy Americans in the eye stuff. Don’t they?
And yet, it was the Canadian audience that was upset. They just don’t like to hear people being mean to other people (those crazy bastids). I live fairly close to Canada, and, if nothing else, my wife and I go to a conference in Kingston every year. I think Canadians are very confused by what we’ve become, and while they rather understandably despise our current fascist government, I think they pity us, more than dislike us.
For the longest time, I believed that Maron’s comments about being fired were
a running gag. I wasn’t in denial, it just seemed so counterintuitive. Actually,
it IS counterinutitive!
It’s exactly the sort of joke those guys would pull off, in order to get
hundreds of letters from upset fans fired off in the blink of an eye. Gotcha! When
they surface again, having seen just how rabid a fan base they have, I will
expect them to do something just like that two or three months into the gig.
JP