Where Have You Gone, General de Gaulle?

If Nicolas Sarkozy considers himself to be ‘an admirer of America’, then heaven help him and the nation of France. Maybe he thinks a little reverse psychology will do his country some good? “We’ve opposed most all of America’s policies in the past and look how far it’s gotten us!” Very unfortunately for Monsieur Sarkozy, he has chosen an extraordinarily bad time to put his baggage on the sinking ship, U.S.S. Bush & Co., and all the wannabe cowboy photo ops in the world won’t save him. As the fake news portion on The Randi Rhodes Show stated (in so many words); “Now that the French are on our side, America’s fate is definitely sealed!” Ironically, despite his tough talk and affinity towards Sylvester Stallone and the like, Sarkozy’s foreign policy advisor plainly states that ‘[Sarkozy] would never have sent troops [to Iraq].’ His choice in role models might leave something to be desired, but at least the man knows his history:

We were kicked out of Algeria less than 50 years ago, so don’t tell us we don’t understand… We were in Vietnam before you, and our young people died in Vietnam. In France, history is something that counts. Please don’t be angry with us because we remember what happened to us. Is there even a single country of the world, at any time of history, that was able to maintain itself in a sustained way in a country that was not its own, uniquely by the force of arms? Never, not a single one, even the Chinese.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/world/europe/08france.html

Gee whiz! and we’ve been copying off the Chinese too!

In any event, these were certainly wise words, but if I remember correctly, our good President Bush said quite a number of romantic sounding things before he was elected too! Something to the extent of never even thinking of invading and occupying a sovereign nation immediately comes to mind.