So much news, one can barely take it all in. From Il Nuevo in Italy comes the intriguing story, "Shoplifter Caught With Frozen Drumstick In Pants":

"A shoplifter who stuffed a frozen chicken drumstick down his underpants was caught because he couldn't stop hopping around. A cashier spotted the 25-year-old man moving around and repeatedly touching his groin as he queued for tills at a supermarket in Saronno ... She called a security officer and the man immediately admitted he had stuffed some frozen food down the front of his pants ... He had been unable to keep still because the frozen drumstick was giving him pain."

There, in a drumstick, is the Chrétien-Ducros approach to damage control: bury the story, stick it out of sight, keep smiling and walk calmly toward the exit, no-one'll notice a thing. Then the world looks on amazed as a supposedly semi-serious second-rank power is suddenly convulsed in weird spasms, doubled up in pain, hopping around, clutching its groin.

What happened this last week? I think President Chirac got it right. Treating M. Chrétien like a lame mutt the neighbourhood gang keeps lobbing pebbles at, he imperiously swatted aside a press question about Morongate. "We are in France," declared M. Chirac. "We are not here to discuss Canadian domestic issues."

Exactly. This is a domestic issue, not an international incident, despite Saddam Hussein's decision to leap to Miss Ducros' defence, surely a measure of the poor fellow's desperation. President Bush is not troubled by being dismissed as a moron by the Government of Canada for the same reason that that smug grandee from CPAC put up to defend our honour on CNN was not troubled when Bob Novak read out something by a columnist from The London Free Press, Herman Goodden. "Who is this guy?" scoffed the CPAC honcho. "I've never heard of him."

Well, I've heard of Mr. Goodden. He's holding down a regular gig at the dominant paper in its market. But obviously it's not like being a swanky public-broadcasting preener at Channel 112, living high off the hog at taxpayer expense. So CPAC's answer to Lady Bracknell pulled rank, refusing to dignify this Goodden chappie by acknowledging his existence. In Morongate, Bush is the CPAC guy, Chrétien is Mr. Goodden, and thus too footling and inconsequential to merit a response.

This is what puts the past week's excitements in the same category as the fellow staggering round a supermarket with a frozen drumstick in his briefs: for everyone else, it's fun to watch and has no wider implications. Yesterday's Globe and Mail carried a column on the subject by Lawrence Martin under the heading "Loose Lips" -- as in the old wartime slogan "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Alas, our decommissioned Dominion doesn't have any ships to sink, though a mere half-century ago the Royal Canadian Navy was the third largest surface fleet in the world. This is the point President Moron was discreetly making in Prague, to Francie's evident displeasure. So, in this instance, Sunk Ships Loosed Lips.

In fairness to her, unlike the 99.99% of Canadians who apparently believe Mr. Bush is a moron in general, Miss Ducros was suggesting that Mr. Bush is only a moron specifically: the guy shows up at a meeting of a military alliance and wants to discuss military capability. What a chump, eh? For reasons best known to himself, the Prime Minister decided to deflect a gaffe with a lie. (Gosh, I hope that doesn't become a habit.) "He is not a moron," he said. "He is my friend."

Do you believe that? Mr. Mulroney and Bush Sr. are friends and see each other socially. But the day M. Chrétien ceases to be Prime Minister he will never ever exchange another word with George W. Bush for as long as he lives. Indeed, their relationship may well reach that happy state some months ahead of schedule. Consider by way of comparison Tony Blair. Like Chrétien, Blair wanted Al Gore to be President. Like Chrétien, he finds Bush not quite his cup of tea -- a bit too Texan and backslappy and casual for Tony's tastes. Like Chrétien, he presides over a party that is for the most part viscerally anti-American. So what does he do? He doesn't claim to be buddies, he gets on with building a working relationship. As for anti-Americanism, here's Blair last month:

"It's easy to be anti-American; there's a lot of it about. But remember when and where this alliance was forged: here in Europe, in World War II when Britain and America and every decent citizen in Europe joined forces to liberate Europe from the Nazi evil. My vision of Britain is not as the 51st state of anywhere, but I believe in this alliance. And I will fight long and hard to maintain it."

Here he is addressing his party a year earlier:

"America has its faults as a society, as we have ours. But I think of the union of America born out of the defeat of slavery. I think of its constitution, with its inalienable rights granted to every citizen, still a model for the world. I think of a black man, born in poverty, who became chief of their armed forces and is now Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and I wonder frankly whether such a thing could have happened here. I think of all this and I reflect: yes, America has its faults, but it is a free country, it is our ally and some of the reaction to September 11 betrays a hatred of America that shames those that feel it."

Why couldn't Chrétien say that?

Because he doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe Bush is his friend, either: He knows the President regards him as a boorish irrelevance. But some lies are easier to tell than others, and these days all the Liberals have to offer are loose lips: If we boast about our exceptional peacekeeping often enough, the fact that we no longer do it won't matter. As long as our nomenklatura pays loose-lip service to Kyoto and "encourages" the rest of us into 1986 Honda Civics, it doesn't matter that Herb Dhaliwal swans around like a Hamas warlord in his three-tonne Cadillac Escalade. Geez, that's bigger than my SUV and I'm in favour of global warming. The almost Soviet disconnect between reality and the party line is so routinely accepted in Canada's public discourse that you can understand Francie's resentment at being momentarily confronted by Mr. Bush's vulgar obsession with the facts.

Fortunately, even as she was packing, Warren Kinsella was live on the CBC restoring the alternative universe of Liberal poseur politics: Canada is America's "closest ally," he said, and furthermore it was Jean Chrétien who persuaded George W. Bush to seek UN Security Council approval on Iraq.

Let me ask again: Does even Warren believe either of these things for a nano-second after they've tumbled from his lips? Bush wouldn't consult Chrétien if he needed a good restaurant in Nunavut, and you can't be an "ally," close or semi-detached, when you've got no military. You can be the girl standing at the station waving her handkerchief as the troop train pulls out and the Glenn Miller band plays Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me). But even Jean and Warren aren't ready to try selling us that one. Hence the contortions of modern Canada: the conscientious objector who insists he's on the front line; the "soft power" whose last drumstick is defrosting in his pants.

Of course, being the celebrated ass-kicker of Canadian politics Warren couldn't resist adding that 60% of Americans couldn't find Canada on a map.

You know why? Because we've dropped off it.