Willard Scott just said, "God bless the French, they voted the right way."

Don't ask me why, although Al Roker introduced Willard with a bad English accent and I guess Willard thought that was his opportunity to say something about the French election. After Willard said God bless the French they voted the right way he then started stuttering and added something like at least in my neighborhood. He really should stick to wishing people happy birthday.

the same way as the old one did...

Been there, done that...

Years ago, that perspective was far sighted; nowadays, it's simple, basic common sense. He doesn't deserve any special credit for not being an idiot, after all.

Not ours...

They know from experience that getting tangled up in intra-country conflicts are a big loser...

Especially when there is a conflict between extreme Islam and secular Islam, Algeria...

That was one of their biggest mistakes and still haunts them to this day...

The underclass Arabs in France are up in arms and will continue to be so until the French get over Algeria and start treating them as citizens and not foreigners...

Hell, all things being equal, if he were the President of France when Numbnutz went INTO Iraq, way back when, the French Foreign Legion would probably have a barracks in Baghdad. He's a corporate kinda guy.

Only an idiot, left, right or center, of ANY country would change course and jump into the "Coalition of the Billing" with us at this stage of the game. That's my point. Sarko isn't a genius, he's just "not a moron" on this issue. It wouldn't matter if they elected Attila the Hun or Jerry Lewis--no one, regardless of political bent, would touch Eye-Rack.

They're on day three of riots in France, at any rate, in response to Sarko's win.

It ain't a good time to be from a former French colony there, these days.

Iraq if her were the president then....


I have been in every meeting Mr. Sarkozy has ever had on the subject, and no, no, he would never have sent troops,” said Mr. Martinon, who also serves as Mr. Sarkozy’s foreign policy adviser.

Indeed, Mr. Sarkozy has long defended France’s decision to stay out of the war, citing the bitter lessons of his country’s tortured history in Algeria and Vietnam.

“We were kicked out of Algeria less than 50 years ago, so don’t tell us that we don’t remember and that we don’t understand,” Mr. Sarkozy told an audience at Columbia University in 2004 in explaining France’s decision to stay out of the Iraq war. “We lived what you are living through in America before you. We were in Vietnam before you, and our young people died in Vietnam.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/world/europe/08france.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

here who claim they'd NEVER have voted for the IWR...but if they were actually warming a seat in the Congress at the time, I'll bet they'd be backpedaling on their vote today. Woulda, coulda, shouda is just all horseshit. He was in no position to make any decisions, so it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback and CLAIM that he 'woulda' done the right thing.

It's smart to bring up Algeria; hell, bring up Indochina too--why not? Bolster your points with plain historical references, easily understood by all!

The guy is a "corporatist." Those guys have made a fortune off the war. That's what appealed to many in the "Coalition of the Billing." If there was beaucoup money to be made with an entree into the war, and he had the authority to do it, he would have gone the other way. I'm convinced of it.

There's absolutely no benefit to saying something would have been a "good idea" if you weren't ever gonna be cut in on the lucre, after all, and even more so when it became clear, fairly quickly, that the whole enterprise was a LOUSY idea. Far easier to say "Oh, NO, I would have NEVER done that" and make people think you're prescient, when in actual fact you were just out of the loop and following the crowd, at the end of the day.

Any doubts where Sarko's head is? After all:

“A vague resemblance to the look of George W. Bush on his Texan ranch,” is how the left-leaning newspaper Libération described Mr. Sarkozy, who was elected president on Sunday, beating the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal in a runoff. The newspaper dismissed the event as a media stunt, saying, “Everything for the image, right up until the last minute.”

Mr. Sarkozy is unabashedly pro-American, a man who openly proclaims his love of Ernest Hemingway, Steve McQueen and Sylvester Stallone and his admiration for America’s strong work ethic and its belief in upward mobility. ...Mr. Sarkozy reached out to the United States, signaling his desire to end the tension with Washington during Mr. Chirac’s presidency.

Addressing his “American friends,” Mr. Sarkozy said, “I want to tell them that France will always be by their side when they need her, but that friendship is also accepting the fact that friends can think differently.” ....There must have been relief in the White House on Sunday that President Bush didn’t have to call Ms. Royal to congratulate her.

After all, she said during the campaign that she would never genuflect before Mr. Bush the way she suggested her opponent had done. She tried to tar Mr. Sarkozy as an imitator of what she called Mr. Bush’s phony compassionate conservatism. She even told a Hezbollah lawmaker in Lebanon last December that she agreed with him when he talked about the “unlimited dementia” of the Bush administration.

I'm just stating, from avialable fact and not recycled campaign bullshit, that Sarkozy would not have gone into the war...

Simple as that...

He seems to be on record at the time of saying he wouldn't go to Iraq...

The rest is all just supposition....

Oh well, I'm off to the world of corporate finance, I have a client to tend to...

Does that make me a corporatist...

Shall I turn in my DU membership....

And his opponent said otherwise, in no uncertain terms. So someone's bullshitting, I'd guess!
This thread, which dropped like a stone, did cover the matter: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2824928

Source: NYT

PARIS, April 26 — Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential election on May 6, accused Nicolas Sarkozy, her conservative opponent, on Wednesday of having “apologized” to President Bush for France’s decision not to back the United States militarily in Iraq.

Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign team called her words “lies.”

“I am not for a Europe that aligns with the U.S.,” Ms. Royal said on France 2 television. “I have never been, and will never, go apologize to President Bush for the position of France on the issue of refusing to send our troops to Iraq.”

(snip)

Ms. Royal repeated her criticism on Thursday evening, telling TF1 television, “He may have changed his posture, but I think all the French were shocked by his move when he visited George Bush, denouncing French arrogance and apologizing for the French position.”

(snip)

“We know that a meeting was negotiated,” Arnaud Montebourg, a spokesman for Ms. Royal, said in an interview. “This showed that in exchange, he had made verbal concessions showing he separated himself from French diplomacy.”

And then, there's this bit of sucking up and tap-dancing. He sounds like he is a pro at having it both ways!

"My dedication to our relationship with America is well-known and has earned me substantial criticism in France," Sarkozy declared Tuesday in a speech before the French-American Foundation in Washington. "I'm not a coward. I'm proud of this friendship and I proclaim it gladly."...The highlight of the trip was an unannounced meeting with President George W. Bush at the White House on Tuesday in part to reward Sarkozy for his America-friendly foreign policy.

President Jacques Chirac, who was the first foreign leader to visit the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks, has been waiting for a return invitation...."Certainly this can be seen as a signal to the current leadership in France," said a senior American official. "Sarkozy has shown he has a different attitude toward the United States."

Even though Sarkozy continues to say he was opposed to the American-led war in Iraq, he repeatedly has criticized Chirac for threatening to veto an American initiative for a Security Council resolution justifying the war.

"You must have loathed us then," he said in his speech.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/12/news/sarko.php
Talk about playing both ends against the middle!!! This guy, really, his rightwing views aside, is probably the best suck up politician to come out of France in a while:

For Sarkozy, who likes to talk about his Hungarian father and his Jewish grandfather, America is a magical place of endless opportunity, innovation and creativity. He wears the nickname "Sarko the American" not as a criticism but as a badge of honor.

In his speech Tuesday, he blamed journalists on both sides of the Atlantic for writing reports often "so far from the truth" about France's adoration and envy of the United States.

The French, he said, "wear American jeans and love American burgers and pizza. Nothing makes a French person prouder than seeing a French actor in an American film." He added, "All French parents dream of sending their child to an American university."....Americans, he said, are "so successful and so misunderstood."....

I really didn't have a point. But I thought this was a discussion board and I pointed out what someone said and opened it up for discussion. Maybe you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

just released a tape.

I thought we killed that bastard twice just this last week. lol

And when Osama is the only one left, we may actually have to find him.

the right way for that neighborhood!

Doddering old fool...'Bless his heart.'*

*In the SOUTHERN sense of the term...

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Creek/2177/BlessYourHeart.html

OMG that was funny.:applause:

France by in large was and is very opposed to the war in Iraq ...
why would they vote to align themselves w/ the United States?

BTW I know nothing about French politics.

Can't he just stick to weather and birthday parties?

:dunce:

But, hey, he's a racist and a corporate apologist, so he can't be all bad.

:sarcasm:

I'd be surprised if he knew much other than that the word "socialist" was involved. And I'm sure that was plenty for him.

I didn't realize this putz was still alive.

He's still around. I've always liked him. There are just some people you don't want to hear talk about politics.

Now he can go back to calling them French fries.

I am reminded of the old hollywood joke about the life of an actor:

Who is willard scott?
Get me that what's his name, scott wiilliam?
Get me willard scott
Get me a willard scott but cheaper
get me a younger willard scott
Who is willard scott?

Get me a Willard Scott, only darker!

Michael Jackson's only friend

that was Ben... getting old I am

As clueless about politics as Brimley is about cockfighting.

die-ah-beetus.

better than we do, from their elections to their health care system, which is one of the best in the world... We could learn a lot from the French...

its own leaders don't have the passion and compassion for France like how their candidate does and will shortly prove himself as being.

:evilgrin: