Similarly it is an "Idea-less" personality: these people have never had an original Idea in their lives either.

This ability to clear and re-write their conceptual RAM (Random access memory) is also what makes them perfect liars.

They REALLY do believe the lies they tell, having lost, or never had, a critical component: "ethical" judgement or values.

Great advocates have the same ability: I have a few times worked closely with QC's, and their ability to absorb hugely complex facts, distil a case, and present it - all without making any moral judgment, and capable of being equally persuasive on either side of the argument - is quite staggering.

He is one of the mouthpieces of the French Ruling Elite ; supposedly being a philosopher, he was a member of the "antitotalitarian left" in the 70's, and like his colleagues Finkielkraut and Glucksmann, has moved rightward ever since ; unlike them, he didn't campaign for Sarkozy (but he chronicles in the Right-wing news weekly Le Point)

He is more a essayist than a real philosopher, but his look (esthetically unbuttoned at the top shirt, long flowing hair), easy, "moral" discourse, make him a favorite in the media.

He is extremely ego centric (also from a wealthy family : he lives in hotels so he has a tenuous link to "reality"). He doesn't hesitate to use the system for personal publicity. He is sometimes a bit insightful, very often ridiculous.

Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

though on a more serious note, i was pretty stunned on my recent trip to France this summer by the number of French people i met whom i had pinned as dyed in the wool lefties, but who -- fed up with the status quo -- wound up voting for Sarkozy.  and, while i cringe to say it in this forum, many managed to persuade me, a little, that Sarkozy might indeed have been the better choice for France.

having said that, i recall the malaise and pessimistic funk that many Americans were in in the late 70's, and how Reagan's "Morning in America" rhetoric led to policies in the 80's that were on balance bad for America, i believe.  i hope that Sarkozy's "Matinée in France" administration does not lead in the end to similar on-balance negative results for France and beyond.

for all of BHL's sketchiness, this sentence reminded me of my original visceral reaction of fear and dislike towards Sarkozy:

... when he said that the Vichy government was not an integral participant in genocide, when he thundered that France should not be embarrassed by its "civilizing" work in Algeria, and when he vowed that if elected he would "liquidate the heritage of May 1968," which for 40 years has been a secret wound, a torment, sometimes the nightmare of the most radical reactionary right wing of this country, Nicolas Sarkozy cut himself off from men like me.

and yet, and yet, i am keeping an open mind on Sarkozy's policies, and i am going to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt until he really screws up.  BHL thinks Sarkozy may be able to help end the Darfour crisis by compelling the Chinese to put pressure on Khartoum:

I am even ready to admit that he is capable of making the Chinese give in on the terrible situation in Darfur where, as everyone knows, they hold the reins of Khartoum's regime of assassins.

and despite BHL's cynicism that they may only be more of

The totems of the left to whom he throws pieces of meat for the sheer pleasure of watching them fight over it

i cannot help but recall an article in Le Monde in early June about the ethnically diverse members of his cabinet he appointed:

La présence de trois ministres et secrétaires d'Etat satisfait les associations des quartiers populaires qui soulignent volontiers que la droite a réussi là où la gauche n'a fait que multiplier les promesses. "L'ouverture à la diversité n'a jamais été faite par la gauche mais par la droite, qui avait déjà promu des gens comme Tokia Saïfi ou Azouz Begag", réagit Azedine Haffar, président de l'Association nationale des élus de banlieue (ANEB). "Je ne suis qu'à moitié surpris de l'audace de Sarkozy. Ça révèle un peu plus la frilosité et l'effrayant esprit conservateur du Parti socialiste", ajoute Karim Zéribi, président du Parlement des banlieues, candidat indépendant et malheureux de la "diversité" pour les législatives à Marseille.

En banlieue, les associations saluent "l'ouverture à la diversité"

I guess for me, the jury is still out on Sarkozy.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

Believe me, the call to "liquidate May 68" was just a heavy wink to the most reactionary forces in France.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/4/28/171617/546

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience

(Sarkozy standing in front of de Gaulle's tombstone in Colombey and asking: "when Gaullists come here, how long do they stay?"), which makes the following points:

• he is not a Gaullist, never has been
  
• he is now trying to look like one
  
• as always, it is about looking the part, not actually doing it

But Onfray strikes me as almost as much of an attention seeking clown as Sarkozy, inasmuch as the latter can be thought of as such:

Sarkozy: I'm no more able to prove the existence of God than you are to deny it.

Onfray: That's no good. It's the person who posits the existence of something who must be able to justify it.

Onfray strikes me as the idiot in that interchange:  the very definition of religion is that you do not "justify" your faith/god in the same way as you justify something rationally or empirically.  Sarkozy is in the right here.

And in this exchange, both of them sound like fools:

O: In French, the word travail comes from the Latin tripalium, which designates a torture device. Our activities can't compare with the burden of a worker who exhausts himself on the assembly line for eight hours a day. . .

S: During my numerous visits to various workplaces, I have been struck by the happiness encountered in factories compared with the lack of it in offices. In Zola's time, in the mines, even if the work was very hard, people didn't feel lonely. The hardship was compensated by friendship and solidarity. The feeling of belonging to a modern world in the making helped the workers to hold on. Unlike today in offices, where you may sit at a comfortable desk obeying your boss, but you are isolated in front of your computer.

Whereas he is right that we cannot compare the long hours of an "information professional" with the long hours of a manual laborer, Onfray is completely irrelevant and comes across like a pedant by tracing the etymology of travail to a torture device.

On the other hand, Zola sounds ten times more stupid and frighteningly out of touch by trying to claim that coal miners' sense of "friendship and solidarity" made up for the abject misery of their jobs, and even made their jobs superior to modern information jobs.

But then, Sarkozy says something which have been expressed on this site:

... l'être humain peut être dangereux. C'est d'ailleurs pour cette raison que nous avons tant besoin de la culture, de la civilisation. Il n'y a pas d'un côté des individus dangereux et de l'autre des innocents. Non, chaque homme est en lui-même porteur de beaucoup d'innocence et de dangers.

In other words, humans are not perfect and will do bad things: thus, the need for the State and the norms of society.

Though on the other hand, he does say things which -- at least in the U.S., I believe -- would cause an uproar:

J'inclinerais, pour ma part, à penser qu'on naît pédophile, et c'est d'ailleurs un problème que nous ne sachions soigner cette pathologie. Il y a 1 200 ou 1 300 jeunes qui se suicident en France chaque année, ce n'est pas parce que leurs parents s'en sont mal occupés ! Mais parce que, génétiquement, ils avaient une fragilité, une douleur préalable. Prenez les fumeurs : certains développent un cancer, d'autres non. Les premiers ont une faiblesse physiologique héréditaire. Les circonstances ne font pas tout, la part de l'inné est immense.

The English summary on Prospect Magazine is worthless.  Pure one-sided, unfair caricaturing.  BHL's piece is far better than that.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.