John Kerry won't be the next president of France either. The haughty,
not-quite-French-enough-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way
served
in l'Indochine, failed to attract enough votes in yesterday's first round
of
presidential balloting. The top two finishers, center-right Nicolas
Sarkozy
and Socialist Segolene Royal, face off on May 6 (or, as the backward
French
call it, "6 May").
The BBC describes the two surviving candidates in a way that reveals
something
about the Beeb:
Both are controversial figures who have divided the French.
Mr Sarkozy is hated by the left as a reformer who many fear
would change the French way of life by making the nation work
harder and longer and by cutting back on its generous welfare state.
Ms Royal is also regarded with suspicion, seen as too authoritarian
and conservative by some Socialists.
So according to the Beeb, you're controversial and divisive if leftists
hate
or distrust you.
Kerry, meanwhile, isn't letting grass grow under his feet. Yesterday he
sent
an email to sup****ters that began as follows:
A quick note from me to you on this Earth Day--a day on, not
a day off as they say.
Earth Day brought me into activism in the first place--and I
still find it empowering because it's not a day for the politicians,
it's a day that began to pressure the politicians--a day that was
built from the ground up.
That's funny, the day before yesterday wasn't it Vietnam that brought
Kerry
into activism in the first place?
--
"You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you
do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do
well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." John "I sup****t the troops!"
Kerry
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