Headline of the Day

This is the sort of crap that makes The New York Sun an indispensible source of arch wingnuttery: "Sarkozy To Extend Prime Job To Known Anti-American". The article doesn't make it very clear, but I think headline refers to the fact that Hubert Védrine may or may not have been in talks with Sarkozy about becoming Foreign Minister, though it appears Védrine won't, in fact, become Foreign Minister. The real news here, though, is that Sarkozy appears to be wooing two different Socialists -- Védrine and Bernard Kouchner -- for some kind of foreign policy position, even though they're not only both Socialists, but on different ends of the foreign policy spectrum.

The moral of the story would seem to be that Sarkozy doesn't have particularly strong feelings about what he wants to do in foreign affairs and is overwhelmingly interested in ways to strengthen his political position in hopes of pursuing domestic reform.

Comments

"too different"? I know it gets annoying having people constantly bringing up these typos, but, really, man. Come on.

Posted by Freddie | May 15, 2007 7:50 PM

The moral of the story would seem to be that Sarkozy doesn't have particularly strong feelings about what he wants to do in foreign affairs and is overwhelmingly interested in ways to strengthen his political position in hopes of pursuing domestic reform.

I'm reminded of LBJ, who didn't feel particularly strongly about Southeast Asia, but knew he'd never get his domestic problem through Congress if the GOP was allowed to demagogue him as soft on Communism. Hopefully the parallels end here.

Anyway, my next-door neighbor apparently gets home delivery of the New York Sun. I'm quite worried.

Posted by Steve | May 15, 2007 7:53 PM

Once again, the Atlantic's crack editorial staff has rendered my previous comment nonsensical.

Posted by Freddie | May 15, 2007 7:59 PM

The second page of the article discusses Vedrine. In a textbook example of journalistic objectivity, the Sun tells us:

"He is anti-American, anti-Zionist, and he favors conciliatory moves toward rogue states and terrorist organizations."

The author concludes that Sarkozy is just pandering to the anti-Americans, which seems to be essentially MY's point (I assume "strengthen his political position" means pandering to those who disagree with him) expressed in a right-wing frame.

Posted by ibid | May 15, 2007 8:34 PM

Didn't Kouchner support the Iraq War (at least initially)?

Posted by RWB | May 15, 2007 8:38 PM

Anti-American, and they have nukes? I guess the axis of evil is back up to three members now.

Posted by daveNYC | May 15, 2007 11:17 PM

"strengthen his political position" for Sarkozy in that case means pandering to the center, aka robbing air from Bayrou and/or from move to the center by the socialist party, this before the parliament elections.

Anti-america feelings are irrelevant, me thinks.

Experience wise (Mitterrand´s ouverture + apolitical ministers), it will end within 6 months with the resignation of the socialist defectors.

Posted by French Parser | May 16, 2007 2:19 AM

Strange, Franco-American relations seem to have been much better when the "Anti-American" Vedrine was running the Quai d'Orsay between 1997 and June, 2002. Presumably, if he's "anti-american" by comparison with his successor Dominique de Villepin and putative predecessor Philippe Douste-Blazy, they must have been "pro-American". And they presided over the worst period since the mid-sixties.

You might almost think Iraq had something to do with it.

Posted by Alex | May 16, 2007 4:58 AM

Kouchner, of course, being one of the very few french people to support the Iraq war.

Sarkozy is very shrewd...

Posted by Chris | May 16, 2007 9:47 AM