Sarko L’Americain

9 November 2007



Sarkozy Addresses Joint Session of Congress

One of the ways America honors foreign dignitaries is having them address a joint session of Congress. On Wednesday, French President Nicholas Sarkozy received that honor. The speech went over so well that he is likely outpolling Mike Huckabee and Joe Biden in Iowa and New Hampshire. Of course, every nation on the planet likes to be told how great it is.

The speech itself touched on the common history of France and America, America’s mission in the world, Europe’s mission (which inevitably will be led by France according to every Frenchman), and a lot of American pop culture icons. It’s easy to get a round of applause from American politicians when one says “My generation shared all the American dreams. Our imaginations were fueled by the winning of the West and Hollywood. By Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, Hemingway. By John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth.” He missed Gary Cooper and Mae West and the flawless Audrey Hepburn was Dutch, but otherwise . . . .

The assembled hacks ate it up. Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said, “President Sarkozy has hit a home run out of the ballpark. I expect a spectacular renaissance in French-American relations.” Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) beamed, “You just heard a Ronald Reagan speech from a president of France. It was an almost out-of-body experience for all of us.”

Back home, President Sarkozy is known as “Sarko the American.” He wants Frenchmen to give up their 35-hour work week, become more entrepreneurial (the word is French after all), and to start acting more American when it comes to economic affairs (although one presumes he doesn’t want to triple the French national debt and run up a $1 trillion debt with China as the current American administration has done). Most Frenchmen aren't convinced.

Now that the poison has been drained from the Franco-American relationship, there remains another problem. Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin hit the nail on the head when he stated, “You cannot be content with looking into each other's eyes and declaring you love one another. You must transform that into a vision and action for the world.” And for the record, ex-President Jacques Chirac was right and Mr. Bush was wrong about going to war with Iraq-Nam. Apparently, Washington has decided to ignore the fact that Mr. Sarkozy opposed America’s misadventure as well.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More