!!!!!!!!!!AMERICA SUCKS!!!!!!!!

It's lonely being pro-American in Canada -- and sometimes at a dinner party, after a good ration of wine, slightly dangerous.

But why should it be so?

The friendliest city I've ever walked in -- and I've visited scores on five continents -- is New York. The most pristine beach I've ever stood on is in Florida. The best food I've ever eaten -- sorry Italy, France! -- is in California's Sonoma Valley.

Still, you won't hear many people admit that.

No, we love to hate America -- and Americans.

We sniff that our medical system is superior to theirs, then sneak down to their world-class clinics when we fall sick.

We call ourselves peacemakers and Americans warmongers -- but do the math on peacekeeping assignments and the United States comes out ahead. It picks up 26 per cent of the annual $5 billion budget for UN Peacekeeping, and despite the fact it's slightly distracted by the war in Iraq, it currently has twice as many UN peacekeepers in the field as Canada.

Meanwhile, we sniff our disdain for Hollywood movies, though we attend them in droves (as we should, they make some of the best) -- while completely ignoring our own.

And as author, journalist and Carleton University professor Andrew Cohen points out in his intelligently argued and entertaining new book, The Unfinished Canadian (McClelland & Stewart, $29.99), which delivers both amusing and incredible insight into the Canadian psyche, we're not afraid to attack Americans -- not only when we're wrong, but when we know we're wrong.

Consider former Prime Minister Paul Martin's 2005 election campaign "chiding" of the US over its commitment to the Kyoto accord.

"The United States lacked 'a global conscience' for reneging on its obligations under Kyoto," he said, though America's emissions have risen 13 per cent since 1990 while ours are up 24 per cent.

"Rebuking the Americans on Kyoto -- fully aware that Canada's record was even worse than America's -- was trafficking in hyperbole and hypocrisy," Cohen notes. So why do it? Anti-Americanism wins votes.

And we think their politicians are pathetic?

How about our snobbery that we're multiculturalists and bilingual ("Quoi?" dit le Quebec!) -- and they're not. Consider, Cohen asks, that of the 41 million Hispanics in the United States, 31 million speak Spanish at home, and that automatic tellers in major cities provide instructions in Spanish and English, as ours do in English and French. Or that "in 1973, 78 per cent of students in public schools were white, and 22 per cent were minorities while in 2004, 57 per cent were white and 43 per cent were minorities." Or how about this: A 2005 Ipsos-Reid poll reported: "When asked whether people from diverse backgrounds would be better off if they became more like the majority, 44 per cent of Canadians said yes in contrast to 38 per cent of Americans."

"Is this a melting pot?" Cohen asks rhetorically. Say no more.

Here's another: They're fat and we're fit! Ahem. Cohen reports half of Americans are fat, while a third of Canadians are. And, alarmingly, he says: "The rate of growth in obesity is about the same on both sides of the border." And I've interviewed Canadian obesity experts who say our adult obesity rate is already at the halfway mark, and that 37 per cent of our children are also overweight. So who's calling whom fat?

While myth bashing quickly gets the point across, Cohen's chapter on the American Canadian (the others he analyzes are the Hybrid, Observed, Unconscious, Casual, Capital, Chameleon and Future Canadians) also makes a strong analytical case that suggests our values are converging with those of Americans.

In the end, the American-Canadian "watches American movies and television, wears American jeans, listens to American music, reads American books and magazines.

"He drinks coffee at Starbucks, eats hamburgers at McDonald's and ice cream at Ben and Jerry's," Cohen notes. "He aspires to the American Dream, whether it is represented by minivan or an SUV, and the greatest obstacle to achieving it isn't desire but money."

Oh yeah, they're better at creating wealth -- which they use to feed the world, promote democracy and human rights, and defend the free world -- than we are. Now there's a difference we can be proud of.

In short, Cohen points out: "If Canadians were really anti-American, we would have to denounce ourselves, or everything about our country and our place in it."

So how does he define us? "We are contradictory, inconsistent and, yes, occasionally hypocritical."

In short, we're not so different from Americans as we may like to believe. And those of us who value the freedoms that attract refugees and immigrants the world over think that's a good thing.

Vive l'Amerique libre!