The US Gossip magazine, in addition to its discussion of Gitmo toilets, has an article on l'Escroc and his legacy (and the French referendum). Austin Bay comments on the article and, I think, hits the main points, but I have some other problems with it.
The first problem I have is that this article is classic Fableweak in that it tries to be terribly cute. The cuteness revolves around l'Escroc's personal porky egotrip museum in his hometown of Sarran and the way the article ties items in the museum to characteristics of Chirac. Ok so possibly the staight facts would bore the readership, although given that the article is a mere 1750 words long (including headline) we clearly aren't looking at an in-depth essay, but do we have to wrap the serious stuff in Sarran as a jokey "alternative" angle? I guess on the positive side it meant that a fableweak hack (Tracy McNicoll) was forced to visit Sarran in a, no doubt, a nice expenses paid way and it is certainly better than the usual practice of drawing sweeping conclusions from the airport, capital city or the taxi-driver who took the hack from the former to her hotel in the latter. In a similar manner the article goes for aimless alliteration and allied word.play such as:
Between the tedious stagnation of Chirac's France and the tendentious transcendence of his global vision comes Europe.
Hands up anyone who can figure out why stagnation is tedious and what the <%expletive> tendentious transcendence means (other than "I'm a pretentions pseudo-intellectual who can use big multi-syllable words"). This is the sort of thing that explains why I prefer the Economist to any of these lightweight dumbed down American rags.
Ok so now I've got the stylistic bits out of the way what of the content? Well what is there is fine and it makes a fair point about how Chirac is visibly out of touch with his country, not to mention his political opportunism and his misteps in the EU constitution case but it merely hints at the biggest problem of Chirac, the stench of corruption that dogs him and makes him unfit to run amything more than a prison cell. There is no mention of the fact that he was elected last time around to the slogan of "Vote for the crook not the fascist" and no hint that, were it not for his presidential immunity, he would be at best in court if not in jail. The wheels have been coming off the Chirac-mobile for a while now and it might have been nice for Fableweak to let its readers know about the seamier side of France. Actually though a search through the abstracts on the archive site shows that one of the authors - Christopher Dickey seems to have the hots for Chirac. During the French presidential election campaign one article starts:
Some scandals are just too delicious, and those linked to French President Jacques Chirac are, well, especially juicy. As one of his rivals once said, "Chirac can have his mouth full of jam, his fingers covered with it, the pot can be standing open in front of him, and when you ask if he's a jam eater he'll say: 'Me, eat jam?' "
In other countries or cultures, that might not be acceptable behavior. But in France, there's a certain charm in cheating, ...
I'm not prepared to hand over the wonga for the remaining 700 words but if this doesn't paint l'Escroc as some kind of lovable rogue then I'm a Dutchman as they say and given that another Fableweak article from November 2001 starts
It's not easy being married to a man "who has an incredible success with girls," admits Bernadette Chirac, wife of French President Jacques Chirac, in her new book, "Conversation." With that, Madame Chirac shatters most preconceptions of her. Long lampooned as a hard-as-nails spouse clutching her purse like an armored shield, Madame Chirac produced "Conversation" as part of a concerted effort to warm her image, just in time to kick off her husband's bid...
I'd say I'm on pretty firm ground here. For Fableweak l'Escroc is a charming politician. OK he has little foibles and weaknesses but they just make him human, not like that evil born again Christian BushMcChimpy and his Neocon theocrats.
Then we get onto the EU constitution. Rejection of this would "be a disaster for the vision of a unified Europe" and somehow I can just tell the Fableweak thinks the EU constitution is the most wonderful document to emerge in history. Its those little hints about how the EU referendum didn't need to be, that France is going to vote on l'Escroc not on the treaty, and so on that show that Fableweak and its journalists are in love with the idea of Europe. Pesky details about how terrible it is that when l'Escroc opens his mouth to
defend the constitution as an —extension of French values, French social policy, French glory. [...] "People in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia are listening to this, too!"
Or in other words in the opinion of Fableweak l'Escroc is now a liability and should go for the greater good of social-humanist European integration.
Still there is the concluding line. I agree with its thrust and just possibly it rescues the rest of the article, although the comparison of l'Escroc to a yokozuna is an insult to every yokuzuna that has ever fought in the doryo and it brings us right back to the stylistic cuteness problem to leave a nasty taste in the mouth:
Perhaps he should remember the lesson of the greatest sumo heroes, the yokozuna. They can never be demoted, but they are expected to honor themselves by choosing to retire when they can no longer perform up to grand-champion standards, or carry all the weight that they've put on.