I'll be honest - there is nasty, petty, smug part of me that wants to see Sarkozy win for no other reason than to have a weapon for me to use against Europeans who think Bush got elected due to a defect in American character (as opposed to more generic human psychological factors). If he does win, I expect a lot of people here to throw a fairly large shar of the blame the Anglo press rather than challenge some deeply held views.
you are the media you consume.
He's unlikely to kill hundreds of thousands of people for domestic political gain. You really outdid yourselves with Prince George I'm afraid.
What you say is to Europe's credit, not the other way 'round. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I just think that while the US appears to be too far gone to have any hope of turning things around without a major <understatement> correction </understatement>, this isn't the case with most of the EU-15.
And the EU can rapidly turn things around once that <understatement> American correction </understatement> takes place, if but for the simple matter that democratic institutions are still more or less viable and comparatively free of corruption, and that solidarity means, viscerally speaking, something for most Europeans, whereas the infrastructure for either in the US is almost non-existant for the simple reason that the concept is so foreign. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I know better than to wish for that.
I did answer your question, though. First, it was that yes indeed France was attacked like this, but was able to fend it off a bit better. 1994-1995 was a big wave of terror but I don't recall France going and invading, say, Oran because of it, any of the attendant failings of the 4th estate or electing a jackbooted fool of a war criminal. I mean, Chirac was bad enough, but like I've said elsewhere, only slightly to the left of Bill Clinton. Not left enough, to be sure, but no Dubya, not by a long shot.
It's not a defect in character of the American people, though, it's an aspect of empire, the softness of character this engenders, and especially the herdish entitlement mentality that all empires, large and small, inevitably see. (OTOH, you may now understand how a Serb felt when Democratic supporters of Clinton's bombing campaign said similar things about them for having elected a Milosevic, for instance...)
And you have to admit, the average American's knowledge of the world, how it works, where things are and who they are relative to it is vastly inferior to virtually all peoples in Europe (with the possible exception of the English). And that contributes to inferior outcomes. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
