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Mark Steyn: Yes They Kahn! Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the other elevated souls of the governing...
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE ^ | May 21, 2011 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 05/21/2011 6:34:13 AM PDT by neverdem

Yes They Kahn!
Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the other elevated souls of the governing class are above your bourgeois standards.

Back when he was still the officially designated Next President of France and not an accused rapist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was glimpsed at the annual IMF soccer tournament wearing a T-shirt emblazoned “YES, WE KAHN!” (Monsieur le directeur was not participating in the game: The field he likes to play requires more horizontal exertions, as even the deferential and protective French media have begun belatedly to acknowledge.) In consciously mimicking the slogan of another and very successful presidential candidate, the IMF boss and Socialist party candidate improved upon it — or, at any rate, made it more accurate. “Yes, We Can”? Er, no, actually, you can’t. But yes, he Kahn!

A man is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and it will be for a New York court to determine what happened in M. Strauss-Kahn’s suite at the Sofitel. It may well be that’s he the hapless victim of a black Muslim widowed penniless refugee maid — although if that’s the defense my lawyer were proposing to put before a Manhattan jury, I’d be inclined to suggest he’s the one who needs to plead insanity. Whatever the head of the IMF did or didn’t do, the reaction of the French elites is most instructive. “We and the Americans do not belong to the same civilization,” sniffed Jean Daniel, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, insisting that the police should have known that Strauss-Kahn was “not like other men” and wondering why “this chambermaid was regarded as worthy and beyond any suspicion.” Bernard-Henri Lévy, the open-shirted, hairy-chested Gallic intellectual who talked Sarkozy into talking Obama into launching the Libyan war, is furious at the lèse-majesté of this impertinent serving girl and the jackanapes of America’s “absurd” justice system, not to mention this ghastly “American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.”

Well, okay. Why shouldn’t DSK (as he’s known in France) be treated as “a subject of justice like any other”? Because, says BHL (as he’s known in France), of everything that Strauss-Kahn has done at the IMF to help the world “avoid the worst.” In particular, he has made the IMF “more favorable to proletarian nations and, among the latter, to the most fragile and vulnerable.” What is one fragile and vulnerable West African maid when weighed in the scales of history against entire fragile and vulnerable proletarian nations? Yes, he Kahn!

Before you scoff at Euro-lefties willing to argue for 21st-century droit de seigneur, recall the grisly eulogies for the late Edward Kennedy. “At the end of the day,” said Sen. Evan Bayh, “he cared most about the things that matter to ordinary people.” The standard line of his obituarists was that this was Ted’s penance for Chappaquiddick and Mary Jo Kopechne — or, as the Aussie columnist Tim Blair put it, “She died so that the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act might live.” Great men who are prone to Big Government invariably have Big Appetites, and you comely serving wenches who catch the benign sovereign’s eye or anything else he’s shooting your way should keep in mind the Big Picture.

Yes, Ted Ken!

Nor are such dispensations confined to Great Men’s trousers. Sec. Timothy Geithner failed to pay the taxes he owed the United States Treasury, but that’s no reason not to make him head of the United States Treasury. His official explanation for this lapse was that, unlike losers like you, he was unable to follow the simple yes/no prompts of Turbo Tax: In that sense, unlike the Frenchman and the maid, Geithner’s defense is that she wasn’t asking for it — or, if she was, he couldn’t understand the question. Nevertheless, just as only Dominique could save the European economy, so only Timmy could save the U.S. economy. Yes, they Kahn!

How’s that working out? In the U.S., Geithner is currently running around bleating that we need to raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling another couple of trillions. On the Continent, the IMF, an institution most Westerners vaguely assume is there as a last resort for Third World basket cases, is intimately involved in the ever-more-frantic efforts to save the Euro from collapse. Good thing we had these two indispensable men on the case, or who knows how bad things would be.

The arrest of a mediocre international civil servant in the first-class cabin of his jet isn’t just a sex story: It’s a glimpse of the widening gulf between the government class and their subjects in a post-prosperity West. Neither Geithner nor Strauss-Kahn has ever created a dime of wealth in his life. They have devoted their careers to “public service,” and thus are in the happy position of rarely if ever having to write a personal check. At the Sofitel in New York, DSK was in a $3,000-per-night suite. Was the IMF picking up the tab? If so, you the plucky U.S. taxpayer paid around 550 bucks of that, whereas Strauss-Kahn’s fellow Frenchmen put up less than $150. So if, as Le Nouvel Observateur suggests, France and America really do belong in entirely different civilizations, the French one ought to start looking for a new patron for the heroic DSK’s lifestyle.

Full disclosure: I’ve often stayed at the Sofitel myself, though without billing Western taxpayers for the pleasure. Nor do I generally require the three-grand suite. Given how comfortable the Sofitel’s more modest accommodations are, I wonder whether even M. Strauss-Kahn does. Especially when he’s presiding over an IMF with a budget deficit of some $400 million. But perhaps it would be unreasonable to ask so famously unzippered a man to tighten his belt. After all, according to Ben Stein, my former colleague at The American Spectator, DSK is “one of the most recognizable people on the planet.” Many’s the time I’ve seen him exiting a swank restaurant with Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan and said, “Hey, there’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn with Wossname and Thingummy!”

Fortunately, when the burdens of recognizability get too great, M. Strauss-Kahn is able to retreat to his house in Washington, or his apartment in Paris, or his second apartment in Paris, or his riad in Marrakesh. Oh, c’mon, you provincial bozos: A “riad” is a palatial Moorish residence built around an interior courtyard. Everyone knows that. A lifetime of devoted “public service” in “socialist” France isn’t yet as remunerative as in Mubarak’s Egypt or Saddam’s Iraq, but we’re getting there. As the developed world drowns under the weight of Big Government, the gilded princelings of statism will hunker down in their interior courtyards and guard their privileges ever more zealously. Once in a while, as in that Manhattan hotel suite, a chance encounter between the seigneurs and their subjects will go awry, but more often, as in the Geithner confirmation, it will be understood that the Great Men of the Permanent Governing Class cannot be bound by the rules they impose on the rest of you schmucks.

Yes, they Kahn. You, not so much. After Charlie Rangel, chair of the House committee that writes America’s tax laws, was “censured” by Congress for multiple infractions of, er, America’s tax laws, a Washington Times reporter invited him to imagine what punishment the “average American citizen” would have received had he done what the Congressman did. “Please,” Rangel told her. “I don’t deal in average American citizens.”

If only.

Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2011 Mark Steyn.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dominiquestrausskahn; dsk
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1 posted on 05/21/2011 6:34:19 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Hey, speaking of a protected political class of perverts and cheats, what has become of Obama’s Hawaiian best friend who was arrested for prostitution?
2 posted on 05/21/2011 6:37:16 AM PDT by blackdog (The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop)
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To: neverdem
Good post. Really good article.

"...the gilded princelings of statism..." Great line.

3 posted on 05/21/2011 6:43:29 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian (Slugs and Bitter Clingers Unite.)
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To: JLS

Ping


4 posted on 05/21/2011 6:43:36 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem

To update Charles De Gaulle for the 21st Century: “The prisons are full of indispensible men...”


5 posted on 05/21/2011 6:44:14 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (If you can read this / (To paraphrase on old line) / Thank a TAXPAYER!.)
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To: neverdem

HOORAY Mark Steyn!


6 posted on 05/21/2011 6:50:13 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: blackdog

“After Charlie Rangel, chair of the House committee that writes America’s tax laws, was “censured” by Congress for multiple infractions of, er, America’s tax laws, a Washington Times reporter invited him to imagine what punishment the “average American citizen” would have received had he done what the Congressman did. “Please,” Rangel told her. “I don’t deal in average American citizens.””

Not really?? That’s up there with “taxes are for the little people.”


7 posted on 05/21/2011 6:53:39 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: ModelBreaker

And to think the resigned IMF head (a socialist creep) gets $300,000 per year for life along with other perks for his “retirement years”.


8 posted on 05/21/2011 6:59:15 AM PDT by hal ogen (1st amendment or reeducation camp?)
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To: neverdem

Mark Steyn: I don’t always agree with him, but I always enjoy reading him.


9 posted on 05/21/2011 7:01:19 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (GOP mantra: 'Repeal and replace.' Translation? 'We can do socialism better than the Democrats.')
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To: neverdem
"Let them eat cake."


10 posted on 05/21/2011 7:03:28 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (GOP mantra: 'Repeal and replace.' Translation? 'We can do socialism better than the Democrats.')
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To: ModelBreaker
I heard him live when he said that. Liberal Americans are so dumb, with an attention span of ten seconds.

My alltime favorite was the "That's why we get to ride in the limo's and you don't" - Joe Biden, during senate hearings. The tyrade Shillary went on when an Arkansas constituant presented her with solid gold razorback earings during the 1992 campaign, was a close second. Anything said by James Carville comes in third. I do however like James very much. Hate his politics, but he is a stand-up guy who say's what's on his mind. After saying it he slithers back under his rock.

11 posted on 05/21/2011 7:04:40 AM PDT by blackdog (The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop)
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To: hal ogen

He gets 300K for life? Wonder how he’ll spend that in prison. Mark Steyn is SO FUNNY.


12 posted on 05/21/2011 7:05:31 AM PDT by bboop (Stealth Tutor)
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To: neverdem

Nobody reveals the absurd like Mark Steyn. He’s a treasure.


13 posted on 05/21/2011 7:08:28 AM PDT by ecomcon
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To: neverdem

Fantastic rant by Steyn. There’s a lot of anger under the humor.

Did Rangel actually say this: “Please, I don’t deal in average American citizens”? Amazing.


14 posted on 05/21/2011 7:14:41 AM PDT by SuzyQue (Remember to think.)
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To: blackdog

Righto. It is amazing to watch the Political Ruling Class Pundits attempt to excuse one of the International Top Dog Socialists. Now they will attempt the consensual sex trick. Compare the Punditry MSM coverage of this Vermin to the coverage of the Duke LaCrosse Team.


15 posted on 05/21/2011 7:19:02 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (Shut up and eat your Beans!)
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To: SuzyQue

Why, yes, he did say that. I’d forgotten this.

http://townhall.com/video/shows/washington-times


16 posted on 05/21/2011 7:20:33 AM PDT by SuzyQue (Remember to think.)
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To: Former Proud Canadian

The GOP leadership is acting like the Royal Piss Bucket Boy.


17 posted on 05/21/2011 7:21:03 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (Shut up and eat your Beans!)
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To: neverdem
I've been thinking about this whole mess and the lawyers saying that the sex was consenual with the maid. You know what? It can't be consensual. She's not in a position to risk her livelihood. She's obviously a courageous person for speaking up.

It's the same thing with Ahnold. I'm sick of listening to all those female talking idiots on TV saying how wonderful Maria is, and how she's the victim. These women who are being used ("consensual" or not) by the elitists are often a direct result of the fact that they are here as minorities, legally at the mercy or their employers or illegally. The fact that Maria Shriver and that hotel had female workers who are second-class citizens means they are for all purposes a slave class. And all of these elitist women who support the invasion of the US don't see this victimization as a consequence.

This makes sense to me. I'm just not sure anyone else will follow my logic.

And I applaud these women. I don't want them in the country, I don't want them taking US jobs and being free meat for elitist pigs, but they did themselves proud. Arnold's friend by all accounts has raised a fine son. And the maid must be going through hell right now, acting beyond what is probably typical.

18 posted on 05/21/2011 7:30:20 AM PDT by grania
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To: neverdem
Bullseye for Mark...thanks for posting.

I love it when they describe DSK as a "millionaire socialist." Isn't that oxymoronic?

And as for the reaction and comments of the French pols and intellects: I did not think that I could think less of the French, but they managed to achieve a new low. However, I do not think that the average French man-in-the-street or woman would feel that the maid is questionable and DSK is really OK.

19 posted on 05/21/2011 7:46:56 AM PDT by Pharmboy (What always made the state a hell has been that man tried to make it heaven-Hoelderlin)
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To: neverdem

i’m surprised that bill clinton is not mentioned. not only did
he rape women, he then hired private detectives to go
after and intimidate them. republicans should
constantly remind people of this. and recently,
katie couric and george stephanapoulos
attended party given by jeffrey epstein,
friend of bill and al, who had been convicted
of sex with underage girls.


20 posted on 05/21/2011 7:48:58 AM PDT by gussiefinknottle (woof!woof!woof!)
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