Free Republic

He has already attempted one reinvention: as outdoorsy Marlboro Man rather than buttoned-up Boston Brahmin. Yet John Kerry, the Democrats' challenger to George W Bush, has been warned by a French-born adviser that his style on the stump is still too "French" to win the presidential election. Clotaire Rapaille, a psychologist and business consultant, has concluded that Mr Kerry, a noted francophile and fluent French speaker, would go down better in Paris than the Mid West because his style is too highbrow. In short, he needs a radical makeover."My expertise is in breaking the unconscious code in every culture, and...

<p>March 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - A French-born marketing guru has a pointed warning for Democratic wannabe John Kerry: You come off as way too French, mon ami. "The whole French connection is 'off-code,' " said psychologist Clotaire Rapaille, who helps Fortune 100 companies sell everything from shampoo to the PT Cruiser car by psychoanalyzing cultures. He calls it decoding cultural archetypes.</p>

Rush Limbaugh has been entertaining his audience members this campaign season by referring to John Kerry as the “French-looking” candidate. Last week, Kerry started doing more than just looking French. He started acting French. The Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic nominee complained aloud that “other countries have lost respect for us.” He went on to say that “never in the last 20 years that I have been in the Senate has the reputation of the U.S. been as tattered as it is around the world because of this administration.” Kerry’s pompous musings must have made French President Jacques Chirac proud....

If John Kerry has his way, here's how the army will end up... god forbid... !

Queen Latifah may or may not be the only "foreign leader" to actually endorse John Kerry, but it's clear that the Democratic campaign so far is working better abroad than it is at home. Monsieur Kerry, the rage of Paris, the toast of Berlin, sprouting in Brussels and boffo in Brittany, continues to insist that a lot of world leaders have endorsed him, but only privately. He told one citizen with an inquiring mind the other day in Pennsylvania that it was none of his business who those world leaders are. Officials of the governments of France, Germany, Russia, Canada...

Candidate John Kerry, on the road to the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, openly proclaims his love for France, much to the distaste of many U.S. Republicans. Kerry has good reasons. The 61-year-old Senator from Massachusetts is of French heritage and speaks the language of Molière fluently. His mother, Rosemary, was a daughter of the wealthy Forbes family with roots in Saint-Briac, an upscale spa town on Brittany's Emerald Coast. Here, in the spacious family home he still visits from time to time, the young Kerry spent most of his vacations immersed in the French way of...

Listening to Republicans, Democratic candidate John Kerry is sometimes a "liberal" , sometimes a fickle candidate ("My adversary has convictions... but they never last a very long time"), sometimes old pacifist without guts... For a few days, they have resorted to a new needle, soaked in an insidious poison: John Kerry is under European influence, even a little French on the edges. At a meeting with big donors Monday in Florida, John Kerry was boasting to have received, in private, the support of several chiefs of government. "I met foreign leaders who cannot publicly declare that, but who said to...

It wasn't exactly a stroke of genius. It was more a stroke of stupidity when John F. Kerry, the presidential nominee presumptive, told a fund-raiser that foreign leaders are pulling for him. He actually seems to believe this is an argument for his election. Listen: "I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that." Naturally these foreign leaders didn't identify themselves. They might look as if they were meddling. Because they would...

<p>LOOK. I know it is shooting French in a barrel. But when yet another insufferable penseur — first Chirac, then de Villepin, now the editor of Le Monde — starts lecturing Americans on how they ought to conduct themselves in the world, the rules of decorum are suspended.</p>

It wasn't exactly a stroke of genius. It was more a stroke of stupidity when John F. Kerry, the presidential nominee presumptive, told a fund-raiser that foreign leaders are pulling for him. He actually seems to believe this is an argument for his election. Listen: "I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that." Naturally these foreign leaders didn't identify themselves. They might look as if they were meddling. Because they would...

I recall with disgust how a woman at a dinner party I attended years ago dramatically announced to the other guests, "I am a Francophile, and I hate America." Save for the rare exception, the guests (Americans all, mind you) knowingly nodded and agreed upon how disgusting and low-class the United States was, and how they all hated the majority of their fellow countrymen. The author Gore Vidal, in response to revelations of the atrocities committed in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, said, "Don't you think that's their problem? That's not your problem, and that's not my problem. There are many...

Much to the displeasure of certain American Republicans, the candidate John Kerry, on the road to the Democratic presidential nomination, proclaims his love for France in broad daylight (au grand jour). And for cause. The senator of Massachusetts, 61 years old, has French roots and has mastered the language of Molière. His mother, Rosemary, was one of the daughters of the wealthy Forbes family, and settled in Saint-Briac, the small crested whaling town on the Emerald Coast of Brittany. It was here, at the family’s grand mansion where Kerry still returns from time to time, at which young John spent...

<p>WASHINGTON: There can be no doubt that Democrats are the nicest, most trusting and gullible collection of people that have ever come together in a political organization. To be brief, one word describes them: stupid.</p> <p>This is made tragically evident by the insane love-affair, fueled by an anti-administration media, that has developed between Democrats and John Forbes Kerry, a French loving Euro-elitist, who is a stranger to the truth.</p>

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Johnny to his French friends, is much loved in the Brittany seaside town of St. Briac best known for its golf and harbor. Francois, a bar keeper there, said, "We see him every summer -- he is Chirac's revenge against America." Kerry has been a visitor to St. Briac for many years. It's where his father met his mother, one of the wealthy Forbes daughters, when they were both in art school. John Forbes Kerry was their masterpiece!

Military Families Delegation to Iraq participants will be in Washington, DC Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to share stories of their personal experiences in Iraq. On November 29th, ten family members of US military personnel who had served or are serving in Iraq left the United States to travel to Iraq. Their purpose was to see first hand how the war in Iraq was being conducted and to bring a message of peace to the people of Iraq. Included in this group was Fernando Suarez del Solar who lost his 20-year-old son died on March 27, 2003 when he stepped on...

In the U.S. backlash against all things French -- or at least all things with "French" in their names, like the fries, bread, braid and kiss -- how will French itself fare? That question has French teachers everywhere en garde. "Anybody who teaches French is going to be a bit of a Francophile, and we don't want to see our programs suffer," says Janet Landerman, an English and French teacher at Cottonwood High School in Salt Lake County. "Every time there's been an anti-France cartoon or something about 'freedom' fries, we've translated it into French and talked about it. That...