[Mr. Mojo]

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the easy-going prime minister who rarely speaks about foreign policy, shot back last Friday at President Bush's "the game is over" statement by saying: "It's not a game, it's not over."

Wrong on both counts. Saddam is indeed playing a game, and it IS over. ....Speaking of over, how does irrelevance taste, Frogs?

[Lost Highway]

But the United States, which declared its independence in 1776 with a similarly universal view of human rights, has long since overtaken France on the world stage.

Say's it all, does'nt it?

[piasa]

"Bush crystallizes all that we hate in America," Pascal Bruckner, a usually pro-American essayist, wrote last year. .

Well, considering that ya'all just LOVED Clinton, I reckon that's we'll take that as a good sign.

[xzins]

If all this was meant to bully France into changing its mind, it's not working.

This isn't new and just for this Iraqi situation.

America has viewed France as "cheese eating surrender monkeys" for generations.

They are.

[MarkM]

The French revolution was a failed revolution. They said it was for liberty and the ended up with a military dictator ,Napoleon. The US had a revolution and ended up with the constitution and an ELECTED president, George Washington.

[N. Theknow]

Bashing the French does not beat them down

What? You expected them to get....fighting mad?

Fighting mad to a Frenchman is when he drops his rifle on his foot while putting his arms up.

[AdA$tra]

"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys,"

I guess this disproves the notion that the truth hurts.

[KC_Conspirator]

Its no surprise that the French owned Reuters (which will not call terrorists, "terrorists") is publishing article after article proclaiming how much the French and Germans hate America. They do however, fail to mention how unjhpopular those two countries are becoming for supporting a dictator.

[Billthedrill]

Americans suffered from a Francophobia as bad as the anti-Americanism that's politically correct in France.

What has changed, I think, is that in several countries the social class that came to fruition protesting the Vietnam war has come to formal power in government, and its adherents have come to regard the arch anti-Americanism rhetoric that is nearly ubiquitous in campuses and the media as normal. Certainly the Clinton administration was full of such people, similar in ideological bent to Fischer, Shroeder, and Chirac.

The lesson that is being learned the hard way at this point is the one that marginalized the Clinton followers - that everyone in the little world of intellectual pretense and social conformity that is the left feels one way about an issue or set of issues does not mean that such a stance will go unchallenged, and it is being challenged vigorously in a way that is unthinkable on campus. Hence the shock when vicious rhetoric that has become commonplace is answered by equally vicious rhetoric that is not - what it will take for the left to cope with this new environment is some serious soul-searching of which it hasn't recently been capable, that, or a precipitous loss of power and re-marginalization. The U.S. elections of 5 November 2002 should have warned of a significant social countercurrent in this regard, but was dismissed with the left's customary conspiratorial labeling or the assertion that it was restricted to the U.S. I do not think that is the case.

[wimpycat]

It's the diplomatic equivalent of water rolling off a duck's back. Bashing the French Americans does not beat them down -- au contraire, it only makes them more convinced they must be right.

"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys," "the rat that roared," "the petulant prima donna of realpolitik" War mongering unilateralist cowboys -- the epithets flung at France the U.S. by the U.S. French and British media can easily make a reader forget they're talking about America's oldest ally their saviors from Nazi Germany and the USSR.

If all this was meant to bully France the U.S. into changing its mind, it's not working.

There...switch a few things around and it reads just as accurately.

[KarlInOhio]

Francophobia

The irrational fear of the French? No, I don't think so.

What would be the suffix for "rational contempt"?

[ricpic]

Seely Anglo-Saxons, vous ne comprenez pas la logique du surrendeure.

[desertcry]

French-bashing? The frogs have not felt the full impact of the anger of the American people yet. Let's see who will get the last laugh, when they become an island of themselves with their beloved krauts.

[Stallone]

Bashing the French only has meaning when you are referring to their heads and your bat.

[Willie Green]

It's the diplomatic equivalent of water rolling off a duck's back.

If they'd bathe now and then (using some soap) the water wouldn't do this.

[weegee]

[dfwgator]

''In countries like that [Rwanda], a genocide is not very important.'' - Francois Mitterrand.

[Stonewall1]

French Military Prowess Revisited
By Anonymous
From the Net | February 10, 2003


President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld may be upset that the French are not "assisting" us in this fight, but out here at the tip of the spear, there is nothing but jubilation at their absence. Last thing we need is to be carrying the French on our shoulders.

A cursory review of French military history reveals the following:

1 - Gallic Wars - Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2,000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.

2 - Hundred Years War - Mostly lost, saved at last by a female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare: "French armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman."

3 - Italian Wars - Lost. France becomes the first and only country to ever lose two wars when fighting Italians.

4 - Wars of Religion - France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots.

5 - Thirty Years War - France is technically not a participant but still manages to get invaded. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.

6 - War of Devolution - Tied. Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.

7 - The Dutch War - Tied. Dutch farmers and tulip growers are tougher than they look.

8 - War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War - Lost, but claimed as a tie. Three ties in a row induces deluded Francophiles the world over to label the period as the height of French military power.

9 - War of the Spanish Succession - Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved every since.

10 - American Revolution - In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; " France only wins when
America does most of the fighting."

11 - French Revolution - Won, primarily due the fact that the opponent was also French.

12 - The Napoleonic Wars - Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for the Russian winter, Prussian grenadiers or a British footwear designer.

13 - The Franco-Prussian War - Lost. For the first, but certainly not the last time, Germany plays the role of drunk frat boy to France 's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.

14 - World War I - Invaded, humiliated and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Winds up a tie for les francaise. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, the American fascination with personal hygiene (a fascination totally
foreign to French women) incites widespread use of condoms by American soldiers, thus precluding any improvement in the French bloodline.

15 - World War II - A decisive defeat even by French standards. Hitler and the German Youth spend Christmas time sleeping soundly through the winter, then arouse themselves to conquer France in six weeks. Hitler dances in front of the Eiffel Tower, while the French command staff retreats to Algeria to institute a crash language program
to teach French privates how to say "I surrender" in German and French generals to say "We surrender" in German. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning he Horst Wessel Song and some small portion of the German work ethic. De Gaulle of it all...

16 - First Vietnamese war (in Vietnamese circles, known as "the scrimmage", or "the exhibition game" where the varsity squad is kept on the sideline to see how the second string will play) - Lost. French soldiers, fresh off their four year occupation by the Germans, catch a terminal case of Dien Bien Flu.

17 - Algerian rebellion - Lost. First time an Arab army has beaten a Western army since the Crusades, and produces the first rule of modern Islamic warfare: "We can always beat the French." A nice phrase, but it lacks something in originality, since it is also the first rule of warfare for the Italians, Russians, Prussians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese, Native Americans and capitalists.

18 - War on Terrorism - Lost. Incensed at not being included in the original "Axis of Evil," France refuses to participate. When it becomes clear that this is a "no-kidding war," Jacques Chirac looks at his cards and immediately surrenders to that old warhorse, Gerhard
Schroeder. For good measure, he also surrenders to five million illegal immigrants from Algeria.

The moral of the story is - give thanks to God on high that the French are not helping us!

[1Old Pro]

Bashing the French does not beat them down

Of course not, they're like fish....no brains, no pain.

[mykdsmom]