I'm sure French politics are just dirty in different ways.
Aren't you the one who talks about it being sensible and reasonable to vote for someone based on your estimate of their personal character? Once you go down that road, you end up sorting through their underwear drawer.
potential future French presidents
The post made no sense until I realized it wasn't a reference to the Dem debate. I've got to stop reading blogs.
Segolene will be not only be a pilf, which is really quite rare (Angela and Gro never did anything for me), but also the most shameless high ranking woman since Catherine the Great or so.
The winger bastards will be seething with fury, because their hatred of the French has been at 11 for six years now. Maybe they can get a new Wurlitzer that goes up to 12.
The institution of marriage itself, is Important, you know. It's not just a matter of respecting your partner and taking good care of the kids.
Nice try, LB, but presumably there are some French voters who also care about each candidate's character.
They way they quote that Hollande guy in the article makes him sound like kindof a weirdo.
I lived in France during the 1990s and have become somewhat familiar with French attitudes, customs, and norms. Above all, the French do value their privacy. For instance, it was a French tabloid that revealed Mitterand had cancer, having gotten ahold of his medical records. Thereafter ensued a lawsuit; the newspaper citing the "public interest" as any American paper would argue; the Mitterand family arguing the right of privacy. The French courts decided in favor of the Mitterand family.
And as you may have surmised, Mitterand did have a mistress and daughter from that relationship, never kept from the press because Mitterand sometimes traveled on state business with his mistress. In fact, he was criticised in the press, not for having a mistress, but for her travel costs borne by the public.
At Mitterand's funeral, his wife, daughter, and mistress appeared together, with no apparant animosity, to mourn their loss.
Overall, the French value their privacy, assert their individuality, and accept relationship bonds that would send puritanical Americans into a tizzy. One cannot help but admire the French.
Whenever I read about the mature, sophisticated French political culture, I am reminded of the noble savage. I am a cynical, shallow person.
I credit all this to the establishment of state religion in France.
Unrelated: what's with this nonsense? Does MIT really give a fuck about this totally beloved 28-year dean who did a dumb thing almost three decades ago? Is academia really so petty?
Atrios has the answer for that type of question, Joe: Yes and yes.
11: We're talking about that on the Booty thread (obviously).
With respect to established religion, the preservation of culture has more meaning to the French than faith.
8 Postscript: Perhaps one remnant of the French Revolution is a natural disdain for "group think." That is why, if one were to ask a person's political or religious affiliation, a typical answer would be "Free Thinker" as noted in the linked article.
Free thinking is so ingrained in French culture that it's a mass cliche -- "Madame Bovary" caricatures one M. Homais, a conventional, self-satisfied small-town free thinker.
Quite right, John. Free thinking is just another weapon in the arsenal of self-delusion; but, in America, at least it would represent a refreshing change. Our cliches aren't even amusing anymore.
3: EWrm, Sarko's personal character seems like an excellent reason not to vote for him, and was cited by Bayroux as his main beef with him.
SC, I'd love to live in a country where you could reasonably expect off-hand irreligious comments to be supported, and even more so a country where they're a tiresome cliche.
Sarko is a version Jean Marie Le Pen sanitized for public consumption.
In spite of accusations of Blairism, #5 is exactly why I'm rooting for Royal. And because "Ségolène Royal" is such a great name.
John, I am almost ready to the leave wetlands of FL and return to France one more time. It does get under the skin (especially inside a duvet).
As a Euro-socialist, Royal would be my choice too. Chirac is rumored to have been an active coke-head, according to friends who knew his dealer.
I am almost ready to the leave wetlands of FL
Labs isn't doing it for you anymore, eh?
Alas, Segolene's brother was one of the Rainbow Warrior terrorists. That really puts a crimp into my admiration of the bootylicious premier-to-be.
Is academia really so petty?
Ooh, can I answer too? "a red yes ... yes ... yes to say yes ... yes ... yes and ... yes I said yes ... Yes."
SC, I'd love to live in a country where you could reasonably expect off-hand irreligious comments to be supported, and even more so a country where they're a tiresome cliche
Surely it helps that one church predominates, was once egregiously established, and fought democracy tooth-and-nail. That a very long post-revolution history arrayed that church in most minds with reaction.
Thanks be somebody/thing we don't have such a history to make it easy to answer which side are you on.
25: Lots of US presidents have dodgy criminal brothers. It almost seems compulsory.
Ja, but Segolene's brother is an elite government hit man. It wasn't a free-lance operation.
Me, I cannot WAIT for the conniptions this will cause over at Fox News:
Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party candidate, is not married to the father of her four children, François Hollande.
Not only does she not have the same last name as the father of her four children, she's not even married! Whore.
"Whore." A bit extreme. Why is a woman called "whore" when men do it with impunity and without derision. At least the French have done away with the double standard. Now that is what I call true gender equality: Equal opportunity Illegitimacy.
The flip side of this privacy and individuality is a strong sense of national identity, which has the drawback of entailing some serious, engrained racism.
Last night's debate was 90 minutes, followed on MSNBC by I think 3.5 hours of crap featuring former Imus guests in their roles at priests of the temple of political conventional wisdom. Apparently Hillary talked tough which was good because she's a girl, Bill Richardson is from the West and Mike Gravel either made the others look good or was a symbol of their inner Democraticism. It was like watching Keith Olberman slowly die. I really would like to see Chris Mathews, Andrea Mitchell and Howard Fineman's take on Royal and her partner.
34 -- Me too! -- where "really would like to see" == "couldn't care less about".
It was more with the thought that their heads would explode from the force being exerted on their narrow little minds.
Right -- but then you are not wanting to see their take, you are wanting to see the upshot of them being forced to come up with a take.
Well it's a matter of your definition of "take".
MATTHEWS: So Andrea, let's hear your take on this.
MITCHELL: (head explodes)
I would posit that her head exploding was, in fact, her take on the issue. Only an effete college graduate would think that a take has to be expressed in words.
Whore! Not that there's anything wrong with that.
swampcracker, you do realize I was kidding, yes?
I do. I thought Equal Opportunity Illegitimacy was in the same vein of humor. I didn't intend to put you on the spot. All in good fun.