Well, go figure the French. They stand in defiance of everything ‘Bush,’ and then turn around elect a man who states frankly that he plans on licking Bush’s boots. If only Ségolène Royal had been willing to say what the French electorate wanted to hear on policy issues . . . But, she wasn’t willing to do that. Yes, she moved to the middle, but she wanted a kinder, gentler France. The French wanted a more modern and productive France.

Nicolas Sarkozy, on the other hand, presented himself as the very essence of a very a very modern American of the western variety. He even posed for photos riding his white horse on a ranch in southern France. He promised to forge closer relations with Washington. Ah Madame France, où est vous?

Meanwhile, across the Channel, Tony “the poodle” Blair is on his way out. The closer Blair got to Bush, the more he was reviled by the British. Now, what will Blair do for the rest of his days? What can he possibly do to change history? The short of it is he can’t and he’s too intelligent to deny that history will write his epitaph.

And yet, intelligence seems to fall by the wayside when hubris corrupts the soul. Hubris has the power to turn intelligent human beings into idiots who have lost the ability to be self-critical. It’s the only thing that can explain how normally reasoning people get caught up in the most egregious kinds of scandals we’ve seen during the Bush administration.

So, now we can only wait to see if M. Sarkozy loses his way. Will he fall prey to the beast called hubris? He appears to have already taken on the role of the new French poodle. However, not even Nicolas Sarkozy will follow the “loyal Bushies” to the chasm, I suspect. Only time will tell. In the meantime, we can hope that he will refrain from calling the French of foreign descent, “scum.”

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And, of course

*Mais c’est dur à supporter,
Un salaud préfabriqué
Qu’on habille de votre peau
Et qui porte vos chapeaux.

But it is hard to support,
a prefabricated bastard
Whom one equips with your skin
And which wears your hats.