I use the word ‘reporting’ loosely.

I mean, we’ve had to endure years of idiotic bashing by US and Brit “journalists” about everything from our national character to our supposed personal habits to our economy. Not a single article about anything about France without some obligatory mention of the French economy being “in shambles” or some similar desperate state. And what have our media, and us, done in return? Pretty much ignore them. That’s right, most French people don’t even know who Bill O’Reilly or Dennis Miller or Jay Leno are. Really, who in France gives a damn about what Fox News or the Murdoch press have to say about us? Except for this blog, Miquelon and a few expats, nobody, that’s who. Even our own embassy ignores much of the bashing! Show me one article in our media, just one, saying “we told you so” about Iraq!

Even now, with the financial crisis hitting those critics with the full force of their ideological rigidity, can you give me examples of gloating on our part? The worst I hear, including from here, is a hopeful sigh of relief that we might finally stop having to hear from them about how backwards we are economically (and in just about every other way.)

No such luck of course. But the bad faith required to keep us as their whipping boy is gonna have to increase markedly. Which is, I bet, what Ms. Di Giovanni is really bitching about!

We may not have a black president, but Chloé Mortaud, our newly elected Miss France, is as diverse as they come. She has an African-American mother and a white French father. She is also a dual citizen of France and the United States. Oh, and she speaks Chinese.

“I want to incarnate … today’s French diversity,” she said.

I’d say let’s name her our Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Let me make a prediction: there will be something negative written about France in the U.S. media today!

Oh, and there will be a mention of the economy being in tatters, and that the French are in denial!

This New York Times article, however, wouldn’t qualify. It’s a couple of weeks old. But it qualifies on everything else!

“I predict that the world will watch French cities light up in youth unrest in 2009, 2010 at the latest … 2011 for sure” says Sudhir Venkatesh, the column’s author, with thinly disguised glee.

Here are the reasons for Venkatesh’s prediction, and my comments:

1. The rest of the country believes they are happy as kittens. (No, I’m serious.)

No, really, he’s serious! Good thing he tells us, ‘cause my first guess would have been that this was lifted directly from some sort of stand-up comedy act.

2. Guns, guns, guns. For the first time, I’ve heard young people in France say that guns are becoming more prevalent in their communities. Fait attention! Les gendarmes.

Ah, I see. Venkatesh isn’t just your everyday U.S. journalist obsessing about France’s problems. No, like a good anthropologist-reporter, the guy’s actually traveled to the “banlieues”! You want proof? Here it is: he’s heard them say: “Fait attention! Les gendarmes.”

Beyond comical!

[Note to English readers: there’s a spelling mistake, cops are very rarely called “gendarmes”, and the expression simply isn’t idiomatic. Nobody, and certainly not some youth in the French suburbs, would ever say something like that]

3. The French economy is in tatters, and the government has no money; the welfare programs in place that usually dampen working-class unrest will be scaled back precipitously in the next few years. Combine this with number one above, and feelings of abandonment by youth will be intensified by pangs of hunger. Recall that the French started a national bank (Le Caisse des Depots) to ensure that citizens had bread on their tables when the emperor grew stingy. Sometimes it may be wise to repeat history.

There it is, the obligatory comment about the French economy being in shambles. Note that the American press has been saying some form of this since… well, since they’ve been writing articles about France. And of course, nobody else has economic problems…

4. Prescription drugs: The French are mad about Prozac. I argued that self-medication will decrease the likelihood of riots in the U.S. In France, it simply amplifies the state of national denial.

You knew that was coming, too, along with Venkatesh’s conclusion (“Wake up, France.”): we’re in denial. Just like for World War II, Algeria, racism, the economy, etc…

I mean, it’s obvious, ask any Frenchie: we don’t have a single problem! OK, maybe the StarAc audience numbers aren’t what we expected them to be, but everything else, just peachy!

5. The press. The French media love the riot. It is the only time they give black youth any attention. Young people know this.

A little bit of a Freudian projection, maybe? I mean, if the bet is on which media is most impatient for riots to begin in France, my money might be on another country’s media… You know, the one that is making predictions about said riots to happen any minute now…

Anyway, one question for Venkatesh: do you have the exact date? I might need to clear my schedule.

DICKEY: What do you make of the rift between the United States and France?

JONES: It saddens me, to be honest with you. I grew up in both cultures. I identify with what France went through in the difficult times of Algeria, of Indochina, the postwar reconstruction, which I lived through starting in 1947. I remember the big green buses with the white stars driving all over Paris–only Americans could get on those buses. It was possible for American families to come and be stationed in France and never speak French, or never even have contact with French culture. I think that created perceptions and divisions that perhaps contributed to the state of affairs–I don’t know what it is. But I regret it, and I can tell you that at the military level it does not exist.

DICKEY: Some Americans call the French “surrender monkeys.”

JONES: France has probably the most expeditionary army [i.e., ready to deploy to distant battlefields] in Europe. And writ large. They have impressive military capabilities across the whole spectrum of operations. They’re good at peacekeeping; their Air Force is modern, state of the art; their Navy is modern; their land Army I know about because I served with them in northern Iraq 11 years ago, and I know their generals–this is a very, very fine army.

A good sign indeed.

More on that interview [fr]

h/t to Old Frog.

The JDD website, a paper close to the government, notes:

Des affiches représentant un portrait de Nicolas Sarkozy au-dessus de la mention “Yes, we can!”, slogan de campagne du président américain élu Barack Obama, fleurissent depuis quelques jours dans Paris. Un portrait peint dans les tons bleu-blanc-rouge du président français est représenté sur chaque affiche et les mots “Yes, we can!” sont écrits en réponse à différentes questions telles que “Une énergie propre et durable en Europe?“, “Faire économiser 1000 euro/an à chaque ménage?” ou “Créer trois millions d'emplois non délocalisables en Europe?“. Des porte-parole au siège de l'UMP et à la Fédération de l'UMP de Paris ont affirmé ne pas être à l'origine de cet affichage sauvage.

As the infamous posters crossed the Atlantic three days later, via a contributor to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish on The Atlantic, naming Sarkozy “nothing if shameless,” the buzz started growing in some media and on the French blogosphere. 

Some cool stuffs, a blog about graphic arts, and more, follows up on the story, saying he was outraged.

Assuming Sarkozy and/or the UMP are behind the posters, the blogger words a scathing attack against this takeover of  Obey aka Shepard Fairey's notorious creation for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, denouncing…

un leader politique, cynique au point de détourner à son profit une image qui disait fondamentalement le contraire de ce qu'elle dit aujourd'hui, maintenant que sa tronche remplace celle d'Obama […]

 Electrostories showed  pictures of the poster displays, stressing the eco-friendly inspiration of their proposals, recalled the original poster with its word Hope and 150 hilarious posters it generated with various characters and slogans, and noted:

Un happening plutôt original dans la démarche !

The websites of a few mainstream media joined in. Weekly L'Express pondered business and law issues, but doubted that a big environment company would want to launch an illegal flyposting, and recalled that using the president's image without his permission can be very costly, adding:

Cela ressemble en tous cas à une belle opération de buzz.    

Updating late on Monday night, the magazine expressed its feeling of having been manipulated:

Surtout, en vous demandant de nous aider à le résoudre, nous savions vaguement que tout cela ne devait, au mieux, n'être pas sérieux, au pire, entrer dans un subtil plan marketing.

Marianne2 wondered whether it is a business buzz for green economy and stresses: 

Les quartiers où l'affiche a été placardée n'ont pas été choisis au hasard  […] Tous à gauche, tous “obamaniacs”. […] Le service de communication de l'ONG Greenpeace, occupée à une autre campagne, dément également être à l'origine de cette opération.                               

With hours passing, the action prompted comments ranging from thorough analysis to mere sarcasm. André Gunthert, from EHESS, an upscale research institution, writes under the title: Sarkobama, a meaningless picture ?  an in-depth analysis  from a “visual history” point of view.

His conclusion :

Quel que soit son véritable objectif, tout se passe comme si sa lecture était contaminée par le second degré. Cette oscillation tient probablement à la nature de son message explicite - la peinture de Sarkozy en Obama - qui ne peut passer que pour sa propre caricature.                               

Satirical bloggers, such as sarkostique, also chose the tongue-in-cheek explanation:

[…] Il a l'air tellement ridicule ainsi.  […] En tous cas, y avait mieux à faire comme slogan.[…]                              

Is the incident political after all, as some latest developments could suggest? On Tuesday afternoon, on Twitter, the mystery seemed almost unveiled. After more photos posted on Flickr ”galerie de photos de Sarkobama“,  and even a video of shadows sticking up the posters, 

a sarkobama blog appeared, writing:

Tout d'abord, nous devons vous avouer que nous sommes assez surpris du buzz que nous avons créé bien malgré nous. Le but initial de nos affichages était de montrer aux parisiens les similitudes frappantes qu'il existe entre Barack Obama et Nicolas Sarkozy.  […]    La sarkobama team                       

A turn of events?  unique et commun was not convinced:

Non, franchement, comparer Nicolas Sarkozy, héritier illustre du Bushisme à la française, à Barack Obama, symbole d'un espoir d'un retour vers plus de justice sociale, plus de respect de la démocratie et des libertés politiques, comment ne pas créer le buzz?    

Rue.89 underlined the parallel drawn by the “Sarkobama team” between a “Black (or mixed race according to some)” and “a dwarf of Hungarian extraction.” Would things turn politically ugly?

On wednesday morning, after a gallant last stand with accusations of usurpation and hacking between the “real” and “fake” Sarkobamas, the plot was finally revealed by L'Express itself:  

L'association écologique [Greenpeace] a révélé ce matin qu'elle était à l'origine de l'affichage sauvage, dans Paris, […]. Objectif: pousser les chefs d'Etat européens à retoquer le plan Climat/Energie.

Ecologist NGO Greenpeace gave away this morning being at the origin of the flyposting in Paris,  […]. The aim: To urge European heads of state to review the Climate/Energy Plan. (at the European summit of Dec. 11-12.) 

 

 

Bloggers take their hats off to Greenpeace's operation :

Politiciens, pour une fois, montrez la même énergie et intelligence que Greenpeace  dans cette campagne!  

Bravo Amadou et Mariem! Vous faites honneur au Mali serieux dans le travail.

Lacroixfrancis from France, is incredulous with joy:

Pour eux cela doit être irréel, ce retrouver a chanter devant ce phénomène , bravo Monsieur Obama, pour ce choix si judicieux et tellement symbolique, vous au moins ne faites pas dans le BLINGBLING, le Mali peut être fier de ce choix et ce dire que les américains vont peut être enfin savoir ou ce trouve ce petite pays d'Afrique,THANK YOU SO MUCH MISTER PRESIDENT !! and good luck Marianne et Amadou, I HAVE A DREAM!!!!

Julien Michel sees the invitation as a sign of recognition of lesser-known talents from lesser-known nations:

Je tiens à saluer les performances de ce groupe qui au dela de leur talents musicaux ont su transmettre un réel message venu d'afrique, de la population dite “pauvre” (bien qu'elle soit très riche d'un point de vue culturelle et qu'on en parle pas assez).
je tiens aussi à saluer le geste “d'ouverture” du président américain Mr Obama qui à compris les enjeux de demain et qui a su tendre la main à des talents moins dirigés par la course aux bénéfices.

Sometimes, Africa and American politics come together in the most unsuspected place from the most unsuspected band. The long-awaited album from the heavy metal band Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy, has one track called Madagascar (see video below).

The song speaks of drifting “so far out from the shore that I can't find my way back, my way anymore” a recurrent theme when it comes to Madagascar. The mention of an African country is already a not-so familiar territory in the heavy metal universe but the more unexpected part is that, as seen on the video, a major portion of the song contains part of Martin Luther King Jr's famed speech, “I have a dream”. And that's how, thanks to Axl Rose, one mixes rock n' roll, civil right movement and Africa.
Almost on cue, Malagasy blogger Vola recently wrote a blog post celebrating the life of Dr. King, 40 years after his passing and invites her readers to attend an exhibition in honor of his memory.

(photo credit to Vola)

Write your own caption or dialogue.

[I know, it’s like the 3rd time I’m publishing this pic. The good news: it’s likely to be the last. Happy Thanksgiving to all.]

Related: Obama poised to rebrand America, experts say.

Excerpts:

America’s image has declined in nearly every region of the world in recent years, but Obama’s victory “enables the United States to start again with a clean slate,” according to John Quelch, the senior associate dean at Harvard Business School.

“Americans can actually go to dinner parties and cocktail receptions around the world today and not have to apologize for the United States the way they have had to do the last several years,” he said. “The election has made life a little bit easier for Americans living and traveling abroad to hold their head up high again.”

The United States’ tarnished reputation has been fueled by a combination of factors, including opposition to U.S. policies like the war Iraq and alleged torture and abuse of prisoners, the perception of hypocrisy, unilateralism, and the perceived war on Islam, according to a congressional report released in June.

[…]

But with expectations so high, experts say Obama will have to work to capitalize on the opportunity before him.

“Obama needs to show that he is prepared to listen to America’s allies, to consult with them genuinely on issues like Afghanistan and climate change, to open up to new thinking about Iran and Cuba, to re-shape the world’s economic institutions,” Oakley said.

[…]

In addition to exposing the rest of the world to U.S. culture, Obama should also make sure young Americans are citizens of the world. Martin recommends education reform, with an emphasis on world history and language classes.

“They think we are clueless, they absolutely think we are clueless, and in many cases we are,” pointing to a 2002 National Geographic study indicating that nearly a third of young Americans could not locate the Pacific Ocean.

Q: Do you see immigration as more of a problem or more of an opportunity?

More of an opportunity: France 46% - US 33%
More of a problem: France 35% - US 50%

Respondents who disagree: US 48% - France 70%

Comment from Transatlantic Trends: “Of all countries surveyed, the French public was the only one to strongly reject the idea that immigration increases crime. While public opinion in the other countries surveyed was either split (47% of Americans agreed, 48% disagreed) or the majority agreed that immigration will increase crime (53% in the U.K. and Poland, 57% in Germany, 61% in the Netherlands and 66% in Italy), only 28% of the French public agreed (while 70% disagreed). Among those who disagreed, 76% had a friend or colleague from another country.”

Q: Do immigrants take away jobs from native-born workers?

Respondents who agree: France 24% - US 51%

Comment from Transatlantic Trends: [A] majority of Americans believed that immigrants take jobs away from workers in their labor market. Interestingly, educational level was not a predictor of sentiment on this issue in the United States. Of the most highly-educated Americans—those with graduate degrees—39% still believed that immigrants take jobs away from natives. In Europe, by contrast, only 17% of the same highly-educated group agreed.

Q: Should legal immigrants be given the opportunity to stay permanently instead of being admitted only temporarily?

Legal immigrants should stay: France 72% - US 62%

[What do you wanna bet that had our responses be more negative the WaPo would have mentioned France in its article about the report?]

Report’s key findings (and more facts).
Report data (and even more facts).

Previous facts for the lesson-givers.

“Drop it, SF, this is harmless,” said some posters.

Well, for one thing, I didn’t really say it was harmful. I just said it was stupid.

But is it really harmless?

Frankly, I’m not so sure. In a country where so few people actually travel abroad, “harmless” stereotypes, when repeated constantly in serious and not so serious settings, shape people’s perceptions. And whatever the perception of a rustic-looking man sporting a beret and a mustache might be, I’m pretty sure it’s not a greatly positive one. And, it seems to me, it can only be downhill from there.

Yeah, I know, this is not on par with the surrender jokes or the dozens of other idiotic stereotypes being thrown down American throats by their hopeless press. All I’m saying is, it may not be that harmless.

What do you think?

[Yes, we invented it. Our military, that is. And pretty much every military in the world imitates us.]

[The picture is a private joke. Don’t ask!]

[Enjoy]

(Maybe I should have just stolen that title to make a more eye-catching heading for this blogpost, but I decided against it. By the way, the only other European columnist I can think of that I would want to watch specifically for any reaction to the election would be Agnès Giard, sex-blogger for France’s Libération, whom I have certainly covered before. But it seems politics generally lie outside of what she regards as her journalistic remit; the article she happened to post right after the election was actually entitled Declaration of love to the zombies. So there you have the link, although I’m not going to deal with that one, you’ll have to read the piece in French yourself. But no, rest assured that it has nothing to do with any politician, whether American or not.)

Why are you Europeans so interested in an American election? That’s the question Høi says he has been asked all the time, both by Americans he knew and those he didn’t but just happened to run across in a bar during time off from his reporting duties for Berlingske Tidende in the States - but in the latter case probably only after his new buddies finally noticed his accent and were moved to ask “Are you from France?”

That they are even asking this question - I mean “Why are you so interested?” - reveals (or confirms) something to Høi, namely “the American ambivalence towards the Old World.” And he goes on; check this out:

Americans are the newly-rich members of the family, who have nothing against posing with their giant, expensive house with newly-acquired art on the walls, but at the same time crave acceptance from the rest of the family, as they continue to doubt slightly their own table-manners.”

“Why are you so interested?”, then, according to Høi is a question that is trying to elicit two answers, often at the same time: 1) “Of course I’m interested, because everyone in the world is!” and 2) “Yes, I’m interested after all, believe it or not, for the following flattering reason . . .”

Alright then, but: So why are you Europeans so interested? Høi provides three reasons:

1. American elections are always compelling, by definition. No one, anywhere, who is plugged into the events of the day can afford to be indifferent. (In other words, answer #1 above - “Of course I’m interested . . .”) One really could not have been indifferent even to Clinton vs. Dole in 1996, claims Høi.
2. We’re interested because American elections are unusually decisive by European standards, and thus they enable Europeans “to live out our own political ideas” - yes, even more than they can “live them out” in their own, native elections! Høi certainly has an interesting point here since it’s true that elections in democracies running a parliamentary rather than presidential system of government together with some variant of proportional representation - such as is the case in his native Denmark, also in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and certain other European states (e.g. certainly Italy) - usually turn out to be a matter, as he puts it, of just “plus or minus ten percent,” i.e. results that bring only small changes to the make up of a governing coalition and/or government - such little payoff for all that trouble and expense! (But that is much less true in France, for example - a presidential system more similar to that in the US - or actually in the UK, which ostensibly is parliamentary but is in reality highly “presidential” in the impact of its national elections primarily because of its “first-past-the-post” electoral system, combined with what is in broad lines still mainly a two-party structure. Of course Høi is abstracting from these counterexamples in order to continue setting forth his point.) Whereas, on the other hand, the momentous potential for change that Obama’s election has brought about is obvious to all; as an appetizer, there are even reports already about how his transition team has identified 200 Bush-issued executive orders that he will be countermanding on 20 January or soon thereafter.
3. Finally, this election was especially interesting, Høi declares, frankly because over here in Europe the picture of the United States as one mighty racist society still endures. Indeed, Høi does not put it in such terms, but it’s quite likely he feels that Europe considers the US to be more racist than Americans do themselves. So naturally, contemplating the candidacy of Barack Obama, very many European felt, as Høi puts it, that “it would do the Americans a world of good to get a black president” (amerikanerne ville have rigtig godt af at få en sort præsident). And now they have.
   

Funniest (in a way) was Chris Wallace (of Fox News…) saying to Jon Stewart “it’s like the French would elect an Algerian as their president” and Stewart laughing in approval, with neither realizing the absurdity of what had just been said (and the line has been repeated over and over since.) Well, Wallace is right: we’re never gonna elect an Algerian as a French president!

OK, some facts:

First, France. We’ll start by agreeing that the situation for minorities is not great. As the official collection of ethnic data is prohibited by law, stats are not easy to find, but from what I can figure there are 15 French National Assembly members (out of 577) that are “ethnic minorities,” and about the same number in the Senate (out of 343). Most of them are from the Departements d’Outremer, meaning they are elected by racially similar people. Still, Ms. George Pau-Langevin in the National Assembly, and Alima Boumediene-Thiery, Bariza Khiari and Samia Ghali in the Senate were all elected in mainland France in majority white districts, as were Harlem Desir and Kader Arif as French representatives in the European Parliament. As well, Rachida Dati (also mayor of the tony and predominantly white 7th Arrondissement of Paris) and Rama Yade are very prominent members of the Sarkozy government.

The reasons for such little representation have lots to do with a fairly closed system that favors people having a very long political career (even a relatively “young” Sarkozy has a 30-year career in politics, to be compared with just 11 years for Obama,) plenty of connections and the “right” education much more than any actual racism, but considering that “ethnic” minorities represent about 10% of the French population, there’s certainly plenty of possible improvement.

Now the US:

There are 100 U.S. Senators. As Obama has now resigned from the Senate, there is a grand total of… 0 black senators.

There are 50 U.S. governors. Only 1 is black. In the entire U.S. history, there’s only been 2.

There are 435 Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. 39 of them are black. BUT… only 8 of them were elected in a district where the majority was white (an additional 4 were elected by a majority of Hispanics). The rest were elected in gerrymandered districts, a practice that wouldn’t be legal in Europe because… quite frankly, it’s racist!

So, at a national level, that’s a total of 9 out of a possible 585. Or 1.5%!

1.5% plus a black president, for a black minority that is close to 13%. Yes, that’s a bit better. But enough to give lessons?

And while we’re on the topic of discrimination, some quick fact about women: the U.S. is 27th in the world in the Global Gender Gap Report published just last week. 8 of the top 10 countries are European. 4 more are in the top 15. France is 15th.

[Previous post on the same topic]

And no, I didn’t write this. The Economist did!

JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the “stupid party” now belongs to the Tories’ transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party’s defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionals”. McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit” intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy” will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

Why is this happening? One reason is that conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives—particularly lower-income ones—are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin’s apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honour.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today’s pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Conservative intellectuals are also engaged in their own version of what Julian Benda dubbed la trahison des clercs, the treason of the learned. They have fallen into constructing cartoon images of “real Americans”, with their “volkish” wisdom and charming habit of dropping their “g”s. Mrs Palin was invented as a national political force by Beltway journalists from the Weekly Standard and the National Review who met her when they were on luxury cruises around Alaska, and then noisily championed her cause.
Time for reflection

How likely is it that the Republican Party will come to its senses? There are glimmers of hope. Business conservatives worry that the party has lost the business vote. Moderates complain that the Republicans are becoming the party of “white-trash pride”. Anonymous McCain aides complain that Mrs Palin was a campaign-destroying “whack job”. One of the most encouraging signs is the support for giving the chairmanship of the Republican Party to John Sununu, a sensible and clever man who has the added advantage of coming from the north-east (he lost his New Hampshire Senate seat on November 4th).

But the odds in favour of an imminent renaissance look long. Many conservatives continue to think they lost because they were not conservative or populist enough—Mr McCain, after all, was an amnesty-loving green who refused to make an issue out of Mr Obama’s associations with Jeremiah Wright. Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequences”; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

Reminds me of the Front National…

Putin: “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls”

Sarko: “Hang him?”

Putin: “Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Sarko: “Yes but do you want to end up like Bush?”

Putin: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

==========

And, through various media, Carla Bruni’s recent conversation with Berlusconi:

Bruni: “When I heard Silvio Berlusconi’s joke describing Barack Obama as ‘tanned’ … I’m very happy that I became French!”

Berlusconi: “We too are indeed happy that she is no longer Italian.”

Diplomatic language is more colorful than I thought…