Patrick Graham's Oct. 10 cover story  in Maclean's has spurred heated discussion south of the border—in part because of its portrayal of U.S. forces in Iraq as increasingly aligned with Saddam Hussein's former supporters, and in larger part, because of the cover image itself. Indeed, the headshot of George W. Bush superimposed into Hussein's uniform, complete with mustache, sent some online communities into a frenzy.

Celebrity gossip site Perez Hilton was the first to notice the Maclean's cover, appreciatively dubbing it "another reason we love Canada." But many of the more than 1,700 commenters on his site were enraged. "F--- canada for that piece of sh-- cover," says one post. Anti-Canadian sentiment was a common theme among the negative reactions, with many suggesting dollar parity might have gone to the country's collective head.

"Presumably [it] will sell well in America-bashing, Bush-hating Canada," Boston Herald columnist and right-wing blogger Jules Crittenden wrote in his review of the article, which he called "an astonishingly clueless effort to disparage the surge by a guy who apparently spent most of his time in Iraq with Saddam's guys or with Sunni insurgents who were killing Americans."

A "rambling, disjointed article," was Lynn Davidson's take at Newsbusters.org. "Graham legitimately documented the danger and violence that still exists in Iraq, but nowhere in his article was he willing to concede anything positive about the country's progress. Graham's one-sided portrayal of Iraq made the New York Times' coverage look Fair and Balanced."

The battle between self-styled conservatives and liberals was another dominant theme in the reactions. On her blog, syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin suggested the cover was evidence of a "left-wing magazine … in need of some quick buzz and a cheap circulation boost," or else of "Bush derangement syndrome." She thanked Crittenden on behalf of her fans for "read[ing] Graham's diatribe so you don't have to."

But posters on Malkin’s own blog pointed out that Maclean’s doesn’t have a left-wing image in Canada. “What you maybe don't see is that Bush hating and American bashing aren't confined to the leftist fringe in Canada - it’s mainstream, left and right," said one.

Among Maclean's defenders was contributor Mark Steyn, who dismissed the cover as "meretricious bilge" but stood up for the magazine's overall reputation. "No doubt it's riddled with Trudeaupian squishes," he wrote on the National Review blog The Corner, "but it's also edited and published by Ken Whyte, who's regarded as way to the right by most of the media establishment."

There was no lack of thoughtful positive reactions, however. Blogger "TRex" at the popular U.S. website Firedoglake called it "probably the most clear-eyed and spin-free analysis of the situation in Iraq that I have ever read.

"It figures that you have to go to Canada to find writing this trenchant and penetrating about the mess we’ve made over there," TRex added.

Graham joined a discussion at Firedoglake on Tuesday evening, where TRex expressed surprise "that MacLean's(sic), a normally right-leaning rag, allowed such unfiltered, brass tacks coverage of the burning clusterf*&k that is Iraq to appear in its pages." Asked how the article came to appear in the publication, Graham told TRex that "in Canada, we don't really have a dogma in this fight."

Some observers, however, clearly worried it could have cross-border implications.

"I think it's distasteful, inappropriate, border line outrageous, and it's obviously not serious journalism," Maryscott Greenwood, executive director of the Canadian-American Business Council in Washington, told ABC News. "This makes the MoveOn.org ad attacking General Petraeus look like kindergarten," she said.

Indeed, even noted left-wing commentator and comedian Bill Maher seemed taken aback. "That's like the Time magazine of Canada," he marvelled on his HBO show, Real Time. "Is that not worse than whatever Moveon.org did?"

"Neither are bad," replied the actress Janeane Garofalo, who was flanked by Salman Rushdie and former Matchbox 20 front man Rob Thomas. "First of all, George Bush is a war criminal. So's Saddam Hussein. And Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, is also not a good guy, and Maclean's should be putting Stephen Harper up there too."

The White House, for its part, declined to add fuel to the fire. "That doesn't deserve a reaction," spokesman Tony Fratto told the Washington Post. But David Wilkins, U.S. Ambassador to Canada, called the cover "highly offensive" in a letter to Maclean's. "[E]quating President Bush, who is committed to democracy and freedom throughout the world, to a dictator who was tried and convicted of the mass murder of his own people is reprehensible," he wrote.

Meanwhile, those responsible for the article suggest the more outraged reactions to the visual depiction of President Bush miss the mark. "With our cover we made a strong statement, but if you look at the subject of our story, no one in their right mind would actually think Bush and Saddam are morally equivalent," says Mark Stevenson, editor of Maclean's. It was qualified, we were talking about particular context, alignments on the ground in Iraq. And from the response from our readers, they understood—even if everyone on Perez Hilton's site didn't."

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