By John Bell
You probably caught that episode of Wild Kingdom, where Marlon and Jim photograph the horny, big bull moose ramming each other in the head, in a frenzy of competition and territoriality.
Only if you saw it can you make sense out of the battle between Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and press baron Conrad Black.
It must be the rutting season.
The whacking of antlers has been heard on both sides of the Atlantic.
In case you missed it, let me bring you up to date.
Conrad has never been a big fan of democracy, but he loves British royalty and the hereditary peerage.
Conrad owns more than half of this country's newspapers, but living here isn't quite good enough for him. A tad too colonial, don't you know.
The crown jewel of his international newspaper chain is Britain's Telegraph.
Owning it has given Black access to the people he most admires: the wacky Windsor family, Baroness Margaret Thatcher, and members of the nobility like Earl Sbeforeswine.
Being filthy rich, Black bought his way into the club, but money can only take you so far.
You need a title.
Finally, years of kissing aristocratic arse paid off. The head of the British Tory party nominated him for a seat in Britain's House of Lords.
The Canadian foreign service said that he could accept it if he took up dual citizenship.
Britain's Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair bent over backwards to make it happen, personally expediting the necessary citizenship papers.
(The idea of a Labour PM being so solicitous to a right-wing git like Black may seem a tad peculiar, until one recalls that this is "New Labour." After all, Blair has written that he seeks to create "a society which celebrates successful entrepreneurs just as it does artists and footballers ...." No doubt his next nomination to the House of Lords will be Pele.)
Conrad must have been delirious, imagining himself in his weasel fur trimmed robe and powdered wig: His Lordship Conrad Black!
And then up stepped that other bull moose, Jean Chrétien.
Black and Chrétien have never been pals.
Black is a funder and supporter of the Reform/United Alternative.
He blames the Liberals for evils like universal public healthcare and bilingualsim.
He uses his papers to print nasty stories about Prime Minister Chrétien.
Which is easy because it doesn't take much research to dig up nasty stories about Prime Minister Chrétien.
Not long ago Chrétien was so irate about nasty stories appearing in the National ComPost, about his consorting with crooks and doing dirty deals with public money, that he called Mr. Black in Austria, in the middle of the night, to bellow a bull moose challenge.
Canny debater and master of the English language that he is, Black's response was probably: "Nyah nyah."
Then Chrétien's loyal retainers unearthed an obscure 80-year-old law forbidding Canadian citizens from accepting foreign titles.
Conrad could accept his peerage only by renouncing his Canadian citizenship. Of course, then he would be in violation of regulations which say that majority ownership of newspapers must remain in Canadian hands.
All his elitist hopes were dashed.
In his pain he picked up the phone and called Chrétien, to bellow his bull moose challenge.
Master politician and wit that he is, Chrétien's response was probably: "Takes one to know one."
Then, to rub salt in Black's wounds, the Prime Minister's Office let slip the rumour that Chrétien might name former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae -- a man Black detests -- to the post of Governor General.
So the battle of the bull moose went public. Black threatens to sue Chrétien for inflicting "embarrassment and inconvenience." The antler rattling has begun.
This will cost the taxpayers a lot of money, what with lawyer fees and prank pizza deliveries to each other's house.
So to economize I suggest we strip them both to the waist, roll them in Crisco, toss them in the ring and let them fight it out WWF style.
It could be interesting. Black is younger and has more than a few pounds on Chrétien.
But Chrétien is a veteran street brawler -- remember how he handled that pesky protester a few years back.
With luck, they'll bang heads to their mutual destruction.
Now that's entertainment.