The Discerning Texan
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Viva Sarkozy!
(I admit it, France is probably my all time favorite place to visit, and it is great to think of France as America's close friend again--it's about time...):
Nicolas Sarkozy made headlines this week by telling his diplomatic corps that "an Iran with nuclear weapons is for me unacceptable." But the French President did more in his speech than name the gravest current threat to global security, itself a feat of clear thinking. He also signaled that France means to be something more on the international scene than an anti-American nuisance player.It's almost enough to spur one to take up French again. Read the rest.
That's worth applauding at a time when the conventional wisdom says the next U.S. President will have to burnish America's supposedly tarnished reputation by making various policy amends. In Germany, under the conservative leadership of Angela Merkel, foreign policy views have been moving closer to the Bush Administration's, not further away, while new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made clear he will not depart significantly from the pro-American course set by Tony Blair.
But it is Mr. Sarkozy who, true to his reputation, has been the boldest in stepping up to his global responsibilities. On Afghanistan, he told the assembled diplomats, "the duty of the Atlantic Alliance as well as that of France," is to "increase efforts." He then announced he would be sending additional trainers to assist the Afghan Army. On Israel, he said he "would never budge" on its security. He warned about Russia, which "imposes its return on the world scene by playing its assets with a certain brutality," and he cautioned against China, which pursues "its insatiable search for raw materials as a strategy of control, particularly in Africa."
Labels: America's Allies, France, Sarkozy
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
France appears to be stepping up!
If--as I suspect--Sarkozy is to Chirac as Reagan is to Carter--then Lafayette may have arrived yet again... and just in the nick of time (h/t Glenn).
Labels: America War Support, Europe, France, Iraq
Thursday, August 02, 2007
C'est magnifique!
PARIS — President Chirac could become the first former French president to be questioned over alleged criminal acts while in office. Judges intend to question Mr. Chirac in the coming weeks despite his claims of immunity from prosecution.
Recently discovered documents suggest Mr. Chirac could be at the heart of the Clearstream scandal — described as the French Watergate. Judges will question his former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, on September 13.
Clearstream centers on a failed attempt to smear Mr. Chirac's successor, President Sarkozy, 52, who was wrongly accused of money laundering via a Luxembourg holding bank of that name in 2004. Mr. Sarkozy has allegedly pledged to hang the culprit "on a butcher's hook."
Messrs. de Villepin and Chirac were reported to be desperate to block Mr. Sarkozy's presidential ambitions at the time. The pair has been forbidden from talking to each other by investigators.
Labels: France
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sarkozy determined to ride Supply Side Wave
Labels: Democrat Sabotage, Economics, Europe, France, Free Markets
Friday, May 11, 2007
Europe (even France!) is starting to Wake Up to Reality; Why Can't We??
Labels: Capitalism, Europe, France, Islamic Fascism, Socialism
Monday, May 07, 2007
Steyn on Sarkozy: Don't bet the farm on a big change
Couldn't he just allow the rest of us to be optimistic for one day? (sigh):
Read the rest here--it gets funnier... and more tragic. Steyn concludes:Is the French election a belated acknowledgment of reality or the latest attempt to dodge it? In other words, is it Britain voting for Mrs. Thatcher in 1979 and America for Ronald Reagan the following year? That's to say, the electorate understands the status quo is exhausted and unsustainable and that unless catastrophe is to be avoided radical course correction is required. Or is it Germany voting tepidly and tentatively to give Angela Merkel the narrowest of victories in 2005? In other words, the electorate was irritated with the incumbents but recoiled from any meaningful change, with the result that Frau Merkel found herself presiding over a nominally fresh government with no agenda and no mandate for reform.
I'd bet on the latter. Just as Frau Merkel proved not to be Germany's Thatcher, I would be surprised if Nicolas Sarkozy turned out to be France's Reagan. Not because he doesn't have Reaganite tendencies but because the French electorate, like the Germans, aren't there yet. M Sarkozy did well in the first round because he co-opted many of Jean-Marie Le Pen's concerns. I don't mean the fascism and the anti-Semitism and the oven jokes. It's a tribute to the shriveling of the French political sphere that, by the time of the last presidential election in 2002, an antiquated perennial loser was able to catapult himself into second place. But, in an advanced technocratic state, where almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled beyond the scope of partisan politics, you might as well throw away terms like "left" and "right." The previous presidential election was meant to be a contest between the supposedly conservative Jacques Chirac and his supposedly socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. In practice, this boiled down to a candidate who's left of right of left of center, and a candidate who's right of left of right of left of center.
In my recent book, whose title escapes me, I cite one of those small anecdotes that seems almost too perfect a distillation of Continental politics. It was a news item from 2005: A fellow in Marseilles was charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.
She was 94 when she croaked, so she'd presumably been enjoying the old government check for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: "Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension."
Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country's many state benefits as monsieur's deceased mom's benefits. To the outside observer, the French give the impression they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming. If that's the case, the new president will have the shortest of honeymoons.
The French Left/Lennists' Woman
If you want to follow the English translations of some of the wacko reactions of the French "intelligentsia" here is the spot (big h/t to Glenn Reynolds for the link).
UPDATE: Meanwhile the burned car count from the "riot de jour" in France are significantly different between Reuters and al-AP; what you mean there is "interpretation" at work here?
Labels: Conservative, France
Sunday, May 06, 2007
UPDATED The French come through: Sarkozy Wins! Will rioting follow?
The French people have spoken--and it is clear they are tired of the perpetually-unfulfilled promise of state socialism and of impotence in the face of the Islamist threat. They turned out and have picked a man who has met with and expressed admiration for President Bush, and who has shown himself to be a man who will stand for the rule of law. I know we give our friends the French a lot of grief for their "surrender tendencies", but if you ask me the Democrats in the halls of Congress are orders of magnitude bigger quitters than the French have shown themselves to be today.
************ Original Post *****************
Michelle Malkin (and many publications abroad) are warning that if--as expected--Nicholas Sarkozy wins the French Presidency today, the loony left and their Islamist allies are expected to riot, burn cars, etc. tonight. And it could be on a large scale.
Aside from pointing out the obvious that these thugs have been rioting in France for over two years solid now, the stark reality that Socialist candidate Royal seems to be urging on the rioters is notable, as it was equally notable when the leftist candidate lost in Mexico and did the same.
The comparison to spoiled children is unavoidable, even if in their rioting these spoiled adult children are causing a hell of a lot more damage to their country and world than is some kid in a grocery store who can't have his Cocoa Puffs. But the mentality--and the maturity--is the same.
Get ready.
Labels: Europe, France, Islamic Fascism, Rioting, The Left
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Is There Hope for France?
Further south, on the Mediterranean, The Cote d'Azur is some of the most beautiful and spectacular real estate on earth. And there is nothing like the Southern French countryside atmosphere of Provence. I could go on and on about Noves, Les Beaux de Provence, and Arles... but I digress. The real question that any American has to ask about France is: how could such a wonderful place have a government that is so screwed up?
Trust me, as someone who genuinely loves the place and the people (ok, outside of a few snooty Parisian waiters...), no one would be happier if France actually woke up and joined the English and the Americans in our real war for survival of Western Civilization. Our country would not even be here had it not been for the French.
Nicholas Sarkozy--the Presidential candidate leading in the polls going into this weekend's elections, is pro-capitalism and pro-American--and he appears to be in a strong position to defeat Socialist Segolene Royal (who is anti-capitalism and anti-American). Sarkozy would clearly be a dramatic improvement over Jacques Chirac. And that is an understatement.
But even if Sarkozy wins, his predecessors have left him a steep hill to climb: the simmering Muslim problem, the demographic time bomb, the failing nanny state, and other problems in a French society far too long dominated by a naiive socialist mindset, is going to make it an enormous undertaking to turn around.
Michel Garfinkel offers an in-depth look in this month's Commentary at how the French got here, and at the ongoing predicaments that the winner of this weekend's critical elections will face.
Labels: Europe, France, Hearts and Minds, Socialism, The Long War
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Sarkozy Looking Good
This is a big election, and not only for France. The May 8 runoff could mean a new revival in European support for America...or in the case of a Royal win, a left turn for what has already been a disaster for both France and the World..
Labels: Europe, France, Hearts and Minds
