BriWi’s Love Letter To Canada

Rachel SklarMar 1st, 2010, 10:57 am

NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a good run in Vancouver these past few weeks, delivering the nightly news before a stunning mountain vista, hobnobbing with Olympians, hitting the Vancouver party circuit with Willie Geist, wearing a sweatshirt to work. It’s been pretty clear from his blogging at The Daily Nightly that he had a blast — and fell hard for his beautiful, polite, be-mittened and be-beavered host country of Canada. Sadly, all Olympic dreams must end, and BriWi returned home from Vancouver on Friday — this I know for a fact, because he was on my flight — but he left behind a thank-you note to Canada which has been making Canadians blush with pride from coast to coast, like so many happy dancing maple leaves.

One thing about BriWi: he really goes native. When he’s in Afghanistan he drops the lingo of Baghram, talking about MREs and getting specific about planes and tanks and the like, and when he’s doing his BriTunes stuff he speaks the language of whatever hip band he’s promoting. Perhaps it’s a newsman thing, but he tends to write about such things not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who’s come through to the inside and is sharing out. That may just be the Tim Hortons namecheck – a sure way to win over a Canuck – or it may be the ingrained kinship of being in a place where he was known as “The Other Brian Williams,” thanks to CTV’s snowy-haired Olympic anchorman of the same name. The two had a BriWi-on-BriWi Summit last week, meeting in person and making cameos on their doppelganger networks. Twice the BriWi, twice the fun!

His thank-you note recognizes Canadians for “being such good hosts” and “for your unfailing courtesy,” but there are a few pointed notes in there: “For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon” (anyone who was at the RNC will surely remember that security!), “For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years” (take that, Other Brian Williams!), and “for reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.” That’s not a throwaway line — it’s a callback to something he wrote earlier on his blog: “A friend of mine says Canada appeals to American visitors because it reminds us of the best of ourselves, and our best times.” They’re cloaked in praise for a gentle neighbor to the North, but it seems to me that they’re *almost* fighting words. I’m not sure who they’re meant for but I like to think they’re directed at “The Marriage Ref.”