[Iris7]

I have always liked DeGaulle, and have ever since I was a kid. Without DeGaulle the world would have been so much more dull.

I would rather not compare Le Grande Charles to la petit Jacques, dull as Edmund Muskie.

Besides, I am enjoying the events in France. There is a bit of organization on the Islamist - Nihilist (a truly French combination!) group making this not a riot but an insurrection.

I keep thinking about what step two is, and step three. I figure they want to topple the government and exercise sizable power in the next, but then what?

[dangus]

DeGaulle's heroism was a fiction of Eisenhower's and Roosevelt's need to create a national hero so France could appear to be "liberated" by Americans, rather than "occupied," as they keep saying about Iraq. The difference, of course, between 1944 France and 2002 Iraq? The Iraqis opposed Hussein; DeGaulle and the French admired Hitler.