Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Bush's Unfriendly Remarks "Towards the French" (!)

In an article about Nicolas Sakozy's visit to New York, Corine Lesnes has the gall to mention (and to make an issue of)
the latest remarks of George W Bush, hardly friendly towards the French.
HUH!? What the hell does she think about the attitude of her own periodical, aka the newspaper of reference, year in and year out, towards Americans — especially Bush!? Or does she ever think about it? Isn't France's anti-American position taken as a given that is entirely rational and logical, as natural as the rising sun?

Oh, yeah, that's right: when France's politicians, intellectuals, editors, journalists, citizens, etc, oppose, castigate, mock, and lash out at Uncle Sam (as one), it is in reality only the "current" administration and its policies they oppose.

But when Americans (or their current leaders) oppose what finally boils down to being only the Chirac-Villepin policy, the only plausible explanation they are being "hardly friendly towards the French" as a whole — the people, the culture, the history (recent and ancient), the civilization, their very identity. (If you read French, you will find that there are numerous examples of this self-serving message to be found in the comments section of posts posted during the past couple of days…)

Which, when you think about it, fits perfectly in with the double standards that underlies anti-Americanism through and through.

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