A Tried and True Election Tactic: Lie

First of all, to accuse your opponent of “apologizing” to America for the torrent of hatred that’s been a part of their lives for decades, you first have to actually have an apology, but there wasn’t one.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential election on May 6, accused Nicolas Sarkozy, her conservative opponent, on Wednesday of having “apologized” to President Bush for France’s decision not to back the United States militarily in Iraq.

Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign team called her words “lies.”

“I am not for a Europe that aligns with the U.S.,” Ms. Royal said on France 2 television. “I have never been, and will never, go apologize to President Bush for the position of France on the issue of refusing to send our troops to Iraq.”

The interviewer noted that Mr. Sarkozy’s official position was that he had supported President Jacques Chirac’s opposition to the war and to French participation in military operations in Iraq.

“Yes, well, listen,” Ms. Royal responded. “He still did this.”

Let’s look at this in a clearer light: Royal is indulging the egos of potential voters by assuming that French people venting to other French people about the US would somehow matter to the US when in reality the US merely ignored the French stance on Iraq, or any of the other flavor-of-the-week screaming in the pediatrician’s office.

Just what part of the chicken in she trying to stroke? The one that assumed that the bleating of a needy European public that navel-gazed over a decade of open warfare in Balkans would matter to anyone in the world.

America acting alone, not giving Europeans who sheltered terrorism the right of refusal over its’ actions, as some sort of sin? If Ségolène Royal imagines that “Europe” should not align with the US, who’s the lone wolf here? With who would they prefer an alignment? Those paragons of human rights in the Africa, the Arab world, Russia, or China?

Seriously. Who ARE these imaginary allies of theirs’? Who are these mystery societies that share their sensitivity and world view? When have they ever demonstrated this sooper-dooper über-greatness they keep assuming undergirds their actions?

They can’t because none of it is real.