Don Cherry should stick to hockey and leave the politics to us
The mouth of the great white north is at it again. Don Cherry seems to make headlines whenever he speaks, whether it’s practicing the gentle art of bigotry in front of a national audience on Coach’s Corner or speaking at the inauguration of the newly elected conservative Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford.
In the past, Cherry has belittled Europeans and French Canadians and slammed the Canadian government for not supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Most recently he insulted anyone who rides a bicycle or takes public transportation to work, not mention every liberal in the country.
Grapes comes off at times like a Canadian version of a tea party member. A church going conservative bigot who not just supports the troops, but supports all the wars they’re forced into, regardless of circumstance. Cherry is someone who strongly voices his opinions without the possibility of others being right.
Most of the Canadian public see Don Cherry as that loud, tough blue collar figure that he himself claims to be; a man everyone else can relate to. It’s just too bad people can’t see through his facade and view him as the rich redneck he really is.
At the recent inauguration of Rob Ford (newly elected mayor of Toronto) he claimed “I’m wearing pink for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything”. He said this in support of Mayor Ford cutting 130 million dollars that was to be used to modernize Toronto’s mass transit system. Does he not realize that in Toronto real blue collar workers have to take the bus to work? And if he’s calling all bicyclists out there pussies he better not visit Denmark anytime soon, he’d get killed.
Mr. Cherry epitomizes what I dislike about hotheaded right leaning folks such as himself. He summed it up nicely in that same speech saying “put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks”.
When a public figure can’t find something intelligent to say they often resort to name calling and hysterics. Cherry will never comprehend that resorting to insults in public only humiliates himself and the CBC. Intelligence only comes to him in hockey form. If anyone out there were to debate this man on actual political issues Mr. Cherry would get torn apart.
I can’t take anything away from Don Cherry’s devotion to hockey, his family or the troops we should all support, but that’s where it ends. This man was voted as the seventh greatest Canadian but he behaves like a Canadian Rush Limbaugh.
…Surely we can do better.
Cartoon courtesy Brian Gable – Globe & Mail
