Guardian: The French Connection

[kskiska]

With Iraq in chaos, we need a new entente cordiale and President Kerry in the White House

"Madam secretary, this will work in practice but will it work in theory?" The reported remark of a senior French official to the then American secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, sums up what both the Americans and the British like to think of as a profound difference between French and Anglo-Saxon ways of thinking. But here's a curious role-reversal to mark the 100th anniversary of the entente cordiale between France and Britain: on the Iraq war, Blair was right in theory, but Chirac was right in practice.

Given everything that has not been found in Iraq (weapons of mass destruction) and everything that has been found or provoked there (an unfolding disaster, inflaming anti-western feeling throughout the Muslim world), who can seriously doubt it? Blair proceeded from general principles that were largely sound to a conclusion that turned out in practice to be wrong; Chirac, from a dubious theoretical premise to the pragmatically correct conclusion.

(snip)

…Obviously, Blair can't dissociate himself from his own recent past, nor can he endorse either candidate. Indeed, prudence dictates that he should hedge his bets. But I have never understood the argument that because Bush and Blair "did" Iraq together, they are now politically married for evermore. A cool analysis suggests that, with the possible exception of trade policy, Kerry is a much better transatlantic partner for the kind of liberal internationalism which Blair represents. He should, therefore, do everything he can to ensure that he is not in any way recruited or suborned to be a cheerleader to the Bush campaign.

Abandoning the excesses of moralistic "war on terror" rhetoric is one way he can avoid that danger. Another, quixotic though this may sound, is to put in some good public words for the French. For one of the minor nationalist absurdities of the Republican campaign is that John Kerry is being targeted for speaking French. The Republican house majority leader begins his speeches: "Hi, or, as John Kerry might say, bonjour ". "Monsieur Kerry" or "Jean Cheri" has even been accused by Bush's commerce secretary of looking French. Quel horreur! Of course, making jokes about the French is an old Anglo-Saxon pastime, to which Americans were for a long time actually much less susceptible than the English. Yet today, a French-speaking American president is precisely what Britain needs, what Europe needs, and, in fact, what America itself needs, to repair the damage done by the blundering unilateralism of the Bush administration.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1192259,00.html

[Laughing Mirror]

1. Who was the last American president who could speak French?

Thomas Jefferson?

[kskiska]

2. No recent ones

You never know, though, what they studied in prep school.

I've read where Clinton spoke a little German from his Oxford days hitchhiking around Europe.

Jackie Kennedy spoke fluent French, but I doubt Jack did.

I just finished a book on President Garfield, who was a professor of dead languages – don't know which– Latin, I'm sure. He may also have spoken French. He was only in office a few months, though.

All the founding fathers must have, though, since they were back and forth.

[Capt_Nemo]

3. The Guardian editorialists still clinging to the delusion

that Blair is not a neo-con in disguise.

How pathetic...