Letters to the Editor
-
military genius
Lafayette? that's a good one.
-
Sarkozy doen't get it
Sarkozy has said that it may be necessary to use force against Iran. That is madness and I can't respect any politician who thinks this.
And if he thinks by sucking up to the US he'll get something in return, then he hasn't been paying attention. Just ask Tony Blair what he got out of sticking his neck out for Bush - opprobrium back home, loss of respect round the world, followed by the boot from the Labour Party.
-
Or ask
Oh hell, just ask the US Congress what they ever got from caving in to GWB.
-
Dangerous president
Greetings to all from France.
One thing Stateside Americans should know: Sarkozy says what he thinks the person in front of him expects to hear. It means nothing to him. To put it bluntly, he lies to everyone's face and does whatever he wants.
During the political campaign, on YomKippur, he slipped into the temple, stayed 10mn, slipped out. Wow, he's come to pay his respects and found time in his hectic schedule for devotions!
Not so: incidentally, I learned he'd slipped in and out pretty much every synagogue within Paris so that he'd be seen -which, for a believer, is a scandal, an exploitation of YomKippur. And to top it off, during the campaign, specific segments were inundated with pictures of him as a choirboy, in his communion alb, etc.
His admiration for the US is childish at best - he admitted his model is "The West Wing", not the "real" America.....
He's not reliable and would cave in. In interior policy, he's already caved in to train drivers (who wanted retirement with full pension at age 50), high school students (who didn't want him to read a teenage communist's letter to them in their high school), fishermen (he promised them tax-free stuff), Qadafi (he sold him a nuclear plant!!!!).....
-
& to paraphrase Sarkozy
I am a democratic American. Don't torture me for it.
-
The Usual Stinky Der Spiegel Spiel
The Der Spiegel articles that Salon publishes often have a stink worse than a fermented cheese wheel in a French fromagerie. This one is pretty bad -- inaccurate, locking Sarkozy in a poodle collar before the rest of the article unfolds. The truth is that Sarkozy is, for better or worse, one of France's most brilliant politicians, and there is no way in hell he's going to be leashed by anyone, least of all an American. Based on the bold and ingenious way he's handled France since his election in May, it's clear that he is jockeying for the affections of the US, not the B-US-H, because he'll be in office for seven years -- way beyond Bush's tenuous, sodden political seat.
Believe it or not, most French people love Americans, but they are suspicious of commercialism and fearful of losing their cultural values. Sarkozy's agenda includes embracing a number of American values -- hard work, less state reliance, etc. -- to pull France out of its 7-year recession. He's not about to abolish universal health care, free university educations, and other socialist programs that are de rigueur in France. He's certainly got his work cut out for him.
But it's not so much that he needs to win over his own people on the economic issues as much as he ALSO needs to win over the Americans. How horrible is it that magazines like Salon keep publishing articles about France that are slanted, inaccurate and supportive of stereotypes (Hi, Bill Maher!). Sarkozy is trying to do what Americans and their media are too lazy to do, which is to bridge the gap of understanding so that we can work together better in the future. Americans have a lot of screwed up ideas as to who the French are. It's a good thing for Europe and for us that someone is finally trying to build some genuine communication between our two countries.
Incidentally, after our brilliantly planned and executed war in Iraq, I don't think any American has any right to bash another country's war failures. So lets cut that crap out right now, shall we? We need all the friends we can get...
-
He's not Mossad
Let's get that straight. Absolutely NO Mossad connection whatsoever, there is not a whiff of truth about that absurd rumor. Got it? NO Mossad connection. None whatsoever. Zero. Case closed.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/868/in2.htm
-
Maria Alexander's post is ludicrous and totally uninformed -- Our Latest Vassal Comes to Town
Oh please - one of "France's most brilliant politicians" -- give me a break. This brilliant politician won the election by getting a majority of votes from Le Pen's National Front consituents. He won most of the older white racist voters who are terrified of the banlieues and view him as someone who can confront the "scum" in the Parisian suburbs, put them all in jail or toss them out of the country. He's already become very unpopular in France, he won't last more than one term.
His grasp of economics and the US economic example is incredibly superficial, he talks in platitudes and generalities.
This entire vomit-inducing farce of Sarkozy's visit to the US just proves the total childishness of the American character.
We love anyone who fawns all over us, who tells us how superior and brilliant and wonderful we are, and who tells us how inferior they are in comparison. Heaven help anyone treat us like adults and dare to tell us "no" for very good reasons -- like Chirac did -- and we throw petulant tantrums and insult the offender with bigotry and ignorance. We're a schoolyard nation who want vassals in the world, not friends. So now we have a new one in this French popinjay.
Along comes this sycophantic buffoon treating us like the childish idiots we are, and all is well again. It's a disgusting spectacle -- now France has a leader who comes to the imperial center of the world, kneels down in obeisance to inform us that he is now our creature, gazing at us in wonder and proper gratitude.
He is therefore anointed with all the predictable praise that this self-obsessed, immature, xenophobic, know-nothing society can heap on him.
-
The new poodle? Of course,
and this is really french, that is Hungarian-French. Mertel is no better. So it looks like Bush has two more "let's attack Iran" buddies Which just about makes an attack on Iran inevitable. Only Europe could have saved us from that impending debacle, but Merkel and Sarkozy have joined the maniacs in Washington. Ce le mort.