Americans are dumb says Lawrence Martin

In the eve of the first debate Globe&Mail couldn't help but unleash its anti-American dog, Lawrence Martin. In his "Has Kerry the brains to act dumb" article he asserts that Kerry should act like a simpleton in order to avoid making the same mistake as Al Gore, Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Adlai Stevenson made before - "of thinking that knowledge is important".
Well, call me a moron but I watched the debates in 2000 shortly after I had arrived in Canada, not knowing much about American politics (i.e. I had not been brainwashed yet by the conservatives :-)) and I don't remember much about Bush's performance, though I do remember that Al Gore struck me as somewhat smug and arrogant trying to show off how smarter he was than that dumb Texan rube.
"As we all know Yugoslavia consist of Serbia and Montenegro..." He said... Yeah, yeah, take a candy good boy and go to your seat...

This is though just one side of it. I do agree with Martin that it should be an intelligent debate with the two sides clearly presenting their positions with the complexities necessary. But then I recall the last Canadian election in which Martin's liberals ( and I mean here Lawrence Martin coz he's a well known liberal faithful) launched a campaign of fear mongering against the Conservatives which sadly did work in Ontario. How intelligent was that???

That's what I don't like about Canadian political elite - the inescapable feeling of smugness and superiority towards the U.S based on... well mostly nothing.