I personally cannot stand the ruminations of BHL, Vanity Fair's favorite philosopher, as he stylishly opines from his Morroccan castle or vast Parisian hotèl particulier about America.

Pouting and eating grapes, perhaps.

I guess I ought to try to see what this rich boy grown old, who has literally never worked a day in his life, says that is SO endlessly fascinating to especially female reporters, with his deeply "serious" mishmash of world politics and his own "philosophy". Usually wearing some tailored shirt, unbuttoned, as he declares his deep, deep thoughts on what Americans should be like, and why the Palestinians deserve the pigholes they're forcibly consigned to live in, regrettably (and here BHL will give a world weary sigh), but for the best.

Maybe Salon ought to have a fashion spread to go with this piece. Bernard-Henri could pose in a new outfit for every trite, useless thing he says. Or preaches.

Seriously, we need BHL to tell us why Europeans love Obama? Like it's some mystery we're all to dumb to understand? Sorry to be so negative-sounding, but I do wish journalists would get the hell OVER this guy's utterly fake mystique.

BHL's leisure and luxury of telling us all what to do comes from his father's paper mills in Europe, raping forests and killing unions , by the way. But let the fancy-man blather on.

He's about an inch deep, when you pull the curtain.

for the real thing, check out

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k7xyi7ddlQv08T1XBs

I like this guy.

One thing he said which gave me a bit of pause, about what is "leftist":

In the two countries, I think it is the same definition: to have freedom and equality, the two dreams of freedom and equality walking at the same pace. To refuse to choose between the two.

Freedom and equality are great, of course, and it should be self-evident that a society which increases one quality will most likely *automatically* increase the other...but that all depends on "freedom and equality" applying just as well to distribution of direct power. (I find it odd that I even noticed that he doesn't sound like he's considering that.)

I'm certainly no anti-globalist, but I feel some sympathy with the folks who have fallen into that view as a result of their frustration with the results of "globalization" as it has thus far been implemented.

Surely Lévy must realize that astronomical disparities of wealth from one person to another creates an *enormous* differential in their relative "power," no matter the current *civic* power-structure.

I guess I gotta buy that book.

"Everything matters to everybody".

Wow. So deep and meaningful.

No. Actually, the most trite, meaningless expression imaginable. It is breathtakingly banal, and uh, demonstrably wrong to any person on any street anywhere.

Seriously? Really? This is philosophy? From this poseur, people buy the crap he's selling?

It's a tautology that the very worst rock band would never use as a lyric, but when it comes from this spoilt playboy it's treated like some sort of divine wisdom.

your guy BHL writes:

Why Obama should be chosen, in my opinion: No. 1, because it would mean really the end -- and the complete victory of the battle begun in the '60s. No. 2, because it will mean the end of a new American evil, which is the dividing, the Balkanization of American society...

BHL: "I am, how you say, making penetrating insights about your country, no?"

Well, no, actually.

1. The idea that an Obama victory would represent "the complete victory of the battle begun in the 60s" is simply laughable, and if an American philosophy prof from Nebraska or Iowa said it you would laugh at him and dismiss him as a bumpkin. Obama is NOT a leftist, and his votes regarding FISA and the billionaire bailout bill are just starters in the case against such an absurd proposition. BHL's view is no less ridiculous than the GOP meme that Obama is the "most liberal member of the Senate."

2.The idea that Obama's election would suddenly and magically wash racism out of America's veins is laughable. BHL has a tin ear, but apparently because it's a French one he gets a publisher for his addle-pated notions.

3. The Islamic world won't turn away from America and the West simply if McCain is elected. They will continue to sour on the US if we continue our airstrikes against civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia-- something that Obama has essentially vouched for when he said he means to expand the war in Afghanistan-- making him no different from McCain in the eyes of the Islamic world, which isn't nearly so sentimental as BHL.

... would you give BHL a platform? Look at his shirts! He's just another moron in love with himself. I say, put him in a cage with Friedman and let them duke it out in an awful mixed metaphor death match.

of course she would would be impressed by Levy.

Rude French guys. Guess he reminds her of a waiter she once slept with.

While I have enjoyed some of Levy's work, I take exception to his perspective noted in the following quotes.

Levy:

"Why Obama should be chosen, in my opinion: No. 1, because it would mean really the end -- and the complete victory of the battle begun in the '60s."

~Barack Obama winning the presidential election will no more change some of the narrow minds of both blacks or whites than his not winning would negate the millions of Americans of all races who will vote for him and the true achievement of equality sought in the March For Freedom of the '60s.

Is Bernard not aware that towns, cities and states are run by Black Americans? That there are Black Americans in every level of American government? That every profession includes Black Americans? That some of the most successful and wealthiest and most respected American citizens are Black Americans?

The battle of the '60s? We ARE equal in the United States of America! In ways, Black Americans have more rights by both law and 'political correctness'; as a result of the "battle begun in the '60s".

Levy:

"No. 2, because it will mean the end of a new American evil, which is the dividing, the Balkanization of American society. This is another counter-effect of a great idea, which was tolerance. You so much tolerate that you tolerate the American society to be in separate bubbles having their own peculiarities, and so on. Obama as president will mean all these bubbles submitted to a real ideal of citizenship. This is his message. McCain will not be able to do this. If McCain is elected, I can tell you the Iranians will close themselves in the Iranian identity. The Arabs will coldly, freezingly imprison themselves in the Muslim identity. The African-Americans will believe that the American society is more and more built against them. You will have an increase of the Balkanization."

~People have flocked to this country for more than one hundred years for a better life. Each nationality has had it's ugly experience of ignorant and bigoted treatment here. No, this is not the pride of America; what each immigrant brought to America, the vulgar and wrongful prejudices and treatment of 'different people' (the negative side of "the bubble").

The fact that all people are now treated equally does not change the past, but it exhibits the growth from our less than proud past mistakes.

People are free to keep their cultural traditions, practice their religions, speak their native languages, eat their native foods......co-exist....that's American!

Levy:

"And No. 3, you have another ideal in the America of today, which I call the competition of victims. Competition of memories. If you are in favor of the Jews, you cannot be in 'favor of the blacks. If you remember the suffering of slavery, you cannot remember too much the suffering of the Holocaust, and so on and so on. The human heart has not space enough for all the sufferings. This is what some people say. Obama says the contrary. It will mean the end of this stupid topic, which is competition of victimhood.

~The topic will end when people stop promoting "this stupid topic, which is competition of victim-hood" as an excuse for its' continuance or divisiveness...

~Not only should the suffering and killing of Jews;

the slavery, oppression, mistreatment and killing of the Negroid race;

the abuses to indentured servants;

the mistreatment and suffering of women and children;

the mistreatment of the less privileged or the physically and mentally challenged;

the mistreatment and slaughter of The Native American Indians

.....be remembered.

It should NEVER be forgotten!!!

It is through recollection that recognition and admit ion of our mistakes that allows for our grow; for a better and more perfect Union.

Levy:

"If McCain is elected, then how will the world react?"

Perhaps Bernard will remember that many of our civil laws are based on the principals of many religions; common courtesy and safety.

Perhaps he might read The American Constitution, NATO, and the Ten Commandments so that he might find light at the end of his rather dark tunnel-vision.

Levy:

"The only way America can get out of the current crisis is a minimum of welfare state, of a Rooseveltian New Deal. It will not be tax cuts and so on ... So America will react badly. The world will react also badly. McCain may not be a bad guy, but he will mean -- his victory will mean -- the revenge, freezing, frightened, shy, rear-guard America. Rear guard. Not vanguard. Not victorious. Not optimist America.

~That's so grim and pessimistic.

He is entitled to his opinion.

....That IS an American liberty.