Part Deux
NR readers may be ingenious, but they are not all punctual. Some more entrants from our “punish France” quiz:
Dave Gilb suggests, “Let’s take detailed high-tech digital computer measurements of the Statue of Liberty, build our own to the exact dimensions, stamp it ‘Made in America,’ and send the old one back to France. They’ll be needing it soon after the bureaucrats of the EU get through with them.”
Rich Migliaccio advocates turning the Reagan Doctrine on the French: “Expel France from the Western Hemisphere. An American backed ‘Granada’-type’ liberation of each island in the Caribbean now occupied, or under the exploitive colonial control of France, is long overdue.
Surely the French stand for the rights of self-determination for all nationalities and are against evil colonial rule – non? The few francs” France earns from these resort holdings in our hemisphere is a small price to pay for liberty, equality (etc.)”
A number of readers proposed cloning a dozen or so Lance Armstrongs to continue humiliating France at its own race.
Dean Benjamin, finally, has an idea that strikes the French where they hurt – and it dearly warms my snowy Canadian soul: “Generously fund (and energetically promote) a program to establish English-language schools in Algeria, Ivory Coast, Haiti … all the former French colonies. Maybe even in Quebec.”
It probably should be noted here that I received a number of emails in French from very irritated Frenchpeople – a testimony, I hope, to NR’s trans-Atlantic reach. One of them claimed that French newspapers were receiving thousands of supportive emails from Americans grateful for France’s diplomatic intervention to save America from itself. Well, anything is possible. After all, during the Cold War equal thousands of Americans (probably the same ones) traveled to Cuba to cut sugar cane at slave wages to show their support for Castro. There’s one born every minute ….
That closes the contest folks. Thanks to all who wrote in.
Wisdom
I’m told the current Economist quotes a Czech diplomat explaining why his country takes the American side in NATO debates. “One thing we learned from the 1930s- no more security guarantees from France.
Excuses, Excuses
I’m laid rather low by flu today, so this will be a short blog.Talk to you (I hope with better voice) tomorrow.
A Dissent From France
One more late arriving email, this one expressing dissent:
Hello,
Well… I’m French, I generally agree with NRO’s views, notably on Israel,Iraqand French Iraqi policy, but do you really have to make such comments? It’s true that the French sometimes enjoy a sort of “cynical sophistication”, but are you sure it is totally relevant to write that the French are “smelly, wine-swilling coward” and other such things?
Do you think that sort of collective offence does any good to anybody, or helps any cause in any way? I don’t see how. May I remind you that Francehasn’t declared war on theUS, nor has it sent suicide-bombers to blow up American civilians? However deep the disagreement between our two countries, it still is nothing more than a disagreement; and however hypocritical and irrelevant French policy might be, that’s diplomacy, and diplomacy is not a tea party.
NRO’s articles have always been very respectful, and rightly so, towards Muslims, Palestinian and Iraqis, because what is at stake is not the way these people eat or wash, but the way their leaders, sometimes more or less chosen, behave.
In the other hand, many articles from the NRO have dealt with racism or anti-Semitism in a very sensible manner. So why are you now bashing the French in a way that would make Louis Farrakhan or Sheik Yassin blush if it was about the Jews? Come on, just read yourself: you wouldn’t want to write that sort of things on the peoples I mentioned.
Or is it that you can’t write such things on them, so you target the French instead? Some people might think so, but I don’t. To be frank, I just don’t understand.
Maybe you will want to publish this mail in the Corner or anywhere else as an example of a ridiculous complaint from a typical Frog, Monkey or anything your like. Do what you like.
In any case, I just feel disgusted by this flow of insults coming from both sides of the Atlantic, and much disappointed to see a review like the NRO behaving this way.