The patriotism factor: asset or liability? (biased article from French wire AFP)

CHICAGO (AFP) - Connie Cominsky, a suburban businesswoman, has become the archetype disillusioned Republican and made it her mission to vote the US president out of office.

An opponent of the Iraq invasion, Cominsky became active in the anti-war movement and then the Democratic presidential campaign.

Her face is showing up in advertisements for groups such as MoveOn.org, and the anti-war Band of Sisters that are running issue ads backing the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites).

"I'm speaking out while I can," said Cominsky, who comes from the Chicago suburbs and speaks in a voice made reedy and uneven by a degenerative condition. "The president let me down. He let the country down."

"I don't feel that pride in my country that I used to," she went on. "We're not liked in the world ... people see us as bullies, a nation that will go to war to satisfy its oil needs."

Conventional wisdom holds that a war president has the advantage over a challenger in an election year. But many Americans say they fell this year that it is their patriotic duty to show President George W. Bush (news - web sites) the door.

And they are doing that, arguing their case in letters in the New York Times, on scores of websites, and through bumper stickers and town hall meetings.

Academics, nobel laureates, billionaire businessmen like George Soros, people with relatives in the military, united by unease over Iraq war and the administration's unilateralism, have gone public with calls for a change in the White House.

Equally, there are those on the other side of the debate who relish having a commander-in-chief who is willing to use decisive force to defend the nation, particularly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I feel better (about America) now, than I did when Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton (news - web sites) was in there," said Korean War veteran John Russo, in a reference to two past Democratic presidents.

"I'm a firm believer that if you're in the cross-hairs you'd better be able to defend yourself."

He is uneasy about the Democratic hopeful, who is a decorated Vietnam veteran, sensing that Kerry would sell America short in his eagerness to restore America to the family of nations.

"He wants an international court, an international army, an international everything," Russo grumbled. "I don't want my armed forces put under the command of some dinky little country with a standing army of 550 men."

"Our soldiers take an oath to uphold the US constitution, not to be at the beck and call of the rest of the world."

The impact on the election of the huge upsurge in patriotism since September 11 is almost impossible to assess, according to analysts.

"It has got wrapped up in the wider debate this year over national security, homeland security, and American values," said Scott McLean, a political scientist at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University.

Certainly, Kerry's decision to play up his Vietnam record -- a move designed to neutralise the president's advantage as a war-time president -- backfired on the Massachusetts senator, McLean said.

A television ad by Vietnam veterans that lambasted Kerry for "dishonouring" his country, and selling out the troops in Vietnam by speaking openly of the atrocities committed by US forces got enormous media play.

The spot dominated the election coverage for 10 days in August, according to Ken Goldstein, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who tracks political advertising for the Wisconsin Advertising Project.

It was "a very powerful message," said Goldstein, that had "a direct negative effect on Kerry."

French wire service Agence France Presse is really going all-out (even more than our own media) to bring down President Bush.

According to AFP and their “archetype disillusioned Republican,” a suburban businesswoman from Chicago, Americans are now frightfully concerned that their so-called “patriotism” may actually be a character flaw, provoking great dislike in the world community

More analysis at:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13197_French_Wire_Questions_American_Patriotism

Excerpt of Speech by Military Families Speak Out Member Fran Johns August 23, 2003 Federal Plaza, Chicago

"working class Americans are sacrificing under an administration which supports a Politics of Selfishness. They sacrifice jobs as unemployment continues, they sacrifice health care as costs rise beyond reach, they sacrifice retirement savings as the economy falters, they sacrifice a college education as tuition at state universities rises between 10 and 40%, they sacrifice home ownership as skyrocketing property taxes force the sale of homes.

We have sacrificed enough. Now it's time for George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz to make sacrifices. It's time for them to sacrifice their jobs."

This is the same org Connie Cominsky was/is in. And a thought they were concerned about military affairs in Iraq?

Thanks, this is such French wishful thinking. In fact, it ties in with an earlier FR article yesterday: British Historian Paul Johnson: Bush Must Win.

It's a great read, and I'll excerpt one sentence: "As one who regularly reads Le Monde, I find it hard to convey the intensity of the desire of official France to replace Bush with Kerry."

Johnson points out the reasons why very wealthy foreign interests would give almost anything to see Bush lose, and then there's Chirac's France, in particular, which will never forgive him for upsetting their sugar-daddy, Saddam.

This is a crucial election, all right.

France tried to own colonies in the ME, and finally got their butts kicked out of their last colony, Algiers, in the late 1950s. Since then the French approach has been to try and corner North African business contracts.

Chirac was Saddam's good friend for over 30 years, and was behind the sale of the Osirak nuclear reactor to Iraq that(fortunately) the Israelis took out in 1981. Chirac had mega-billions in oil and other business contracts with that psychopath, Saddam, and he went to unbelievable lengths to protect his patron through the UN and every other string he could pull.

It's amazing how the French can preen and consider their "culture" the most superior, and they have nothing to base it on. There is no honor, it's all about getting money from the Islamists who, ironically, are undermining France with their Islamic immigrants and will eventually take over.

As for the French, Let Them Eat Snails, Garden Slugs or whatever other slimy creatures they choose to put on their plates in tiny portions at ridiculous prices. Truth there is in the saying "You are what you eat".

Not even my Liberal friends seem to care about French or European opinion in general. We have far more to worry about in our own media which, it seems, will not even stop at outright forgery to besmirch our President.

Nor should we be suprised at their wanting Bush out of office. He may not be "Nuanced" but he's not likely to fall for any more of their faux intelligence, or reward them with lucrative contracts for their obstructionism.

The role of France in the world is just a continuation of the perverse echo that the French revolution was to the American. While one affirmed the individual rights and the manifest destiny not only of a country, but its' citizens right to share in that destiny, the French version became a SocioEgalitarian nightmare, unable to keep its' commitments abroad or protect itself at home. Should we give credence to their "opinions", we will share their fate. Irrelevancy.

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