While relaxing at home in Great Falls, Virginia, this afternoon, I received a telephone call from Jacques, my thoroughly French friend from La Sorbonne.
Jacques: Hello, Tom? Comment vas-tu?
Tom: Ca va, et toi?
Jacques: To tell the truth, my friend Tom, I am not so happy today, because of what I have read on the BBC Web site.
Tom: About what, pray tell?
Jacques: There, I read this morning that somebody named Newt Gingrich has made, how do you say, the campaign advertisement, yes? And in it, Newt Gingrich says that his opponent, Mitt Romney, is an evil man who will say anything to get elected.
Tom: Actually, it’s not Newt Gingrich saying those things about Mitt Romney.
Jacques: It is not? Then who is it that says these things?
Tom: It’s a Super-PAC that likes Newt Gingrich which is telling the American public that Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected. And, not to get too technical, but I don’t think the Super-PAC actually said, in so many words, that Mitt Romney is evil.
Jacques: A “Super-PAC?” What is this thing?
Tom: Well, without getting too elaborate and lengthy about it, a couple of years ago, essentially, our Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people and money is free speech…
Jacques: What? That some business which sells the ladies’ undergarments, it is a person? That spending money is free speech? Am I understanding you correctly in your English?
Tom: Oui, tu comprenez mes déclarations anglais correctement.
Jacques: And your French, as usual, is atrocious. Okay, then, how is such madness possible?
Tom: Such madness is possible because it is a firmly established American legal principle of long standing, that the Constitution of the United States means exactly what the Supreme Court says it means, and nothing else; and, furthermore, our current Supreme Court says corporations are people and money is free speech. Therefore, our political system now allows persons – corporate or otherwise – to form independent legal entities, called “super political action committees,” or “Super-PACs,” that can support individuals like Newt Gingrich for public office, including the presidency, and anonymously fund advertisements lying about, denigrating, and insulting his opponents.
Jacques: Oui! So it would seem! And it is just this that I am calling to ask you about, because the BBC says that, in this advertisement full of lies, denigration and insults about Mitt Romney, this Gingrich person makes a very big deal of the fact that Romney speaks French!
Tom: Yes, so I have heard. The advertisement includes a clip from when Romney was Chief Operating Officer of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, greeting French Olympians in their native language.
Jacques: So tell me, Tom – what is the point of that? This advertisement, the BBC says, it also calls Romney a “Massachusetts moderate.”
Tom: Yes, believe it does.
Jacques: Is saying that someone is from your state of Massachusetts an insult, then?
Tom: Well, probably not in New England, no. But it’s definitely no compliment in, say, Alabama; or, for that matter, in South Carolina, which is where the advertisement is running on statewide television at the moment.
Jacques: And to call someone a “moderate?” Is this also a big insult in the United States?
Tom: Again, not so much in California or New York, I guess, but in Texas, those are definitely fighting words.
Jacques: And to say, as the advertisement does, that Romney “ran away from Ronald Reagan” this is a great denigration?
Tom: To Republicans, yes.
Jacques: But Tom! Ronald Reagan, il était un idiot impardonnable!
Tom: Oui.
Jacques: Il a fait les Etats-Unis un anathème à toute personne éduquée dans le monde.
Tom: C’est triste, mais vrai.
Jacques: So how can it be that to say someone ran away from such a person as Ronald Reagan is an insult? Au contraire, une telle déclaration devrait être un grand compliment, n’est-ce pas?
Tom: In Paris, yes; in Peoria, no.
Jacques: Peoria? This Peoria, where is that?
Tom: It’s a city in Illinois.
Jacques: And why do you say this – this Peoria, Illinois?
Tom: Peoria is commonly used as a metaphor of all things typically American.
Jacques: And in this Peoria, Illinois, it is an insult to say a politician ran away from Ronald Reagan?
Tom: Well, in Peoria, Illinois, it’s definitely an insult to say that a Republican politician ran away from Ronald Reagan, yes.
Jacques: And also in South Carolina, where this advertisement is everywhere on television?
Tom: In South Carolina, to say that a Republican ran away from Ronald Reagan is a very great insult, indeed.
Jacques: Mon dieu! Quel est leur problème, ces gens de la Caroline du Sud?
Tom: Primarily, as it were, their problem is that they kicked up a bodacious ruckus about keeping their slaves, made fools of themselves ranting about states’ rights, bombarded Fort Sumter, started the Civil War and then commenced to get their raggedy cracker behinds beat so bad they’ve all had to eat dinner standing up for the last one hundred and forty-six years.
Jacques: And this problem, what have the people of South Carolina done about it?
Tom: They fixed it so they have the second presidential primary, right after New Hampshire.
Jacques: What? Is that all?
Tom: It’s all they could think of, apparently.
Jacques: And this John Kerry, who is he?
Tom: He’s a Democratic US senator from Massachusetts who speaks French.
Jacques: Yes, all right, I see. And so?
Tom: And so, in other words, as far as Republican voters are concerned, he’s the Devil Himself.
Jacques: And that’s why the advertisement mentions him?
Tom: Exactly. It seeks to link Mitt Romney to moderation, Massachusetts and people who speak French – in other words, the advertisement says that Mitt Romney might as well be John Kerry.
Jacques: All right, all right, my friend Tom, I understand why, in America, it can be a big insult to call someone a moderate, and how it can be a great denigration to associate someone with the state of Massachusetts. But why is it so horrible to speak French? Did we French not help you Americans win your independence from the English king? Was not our own revolution inspired by yours? Did we not give you the Statue of Liberty? Have not our two countries always been allies?
Tom: Ah well, there was that bit of nastiness during the Adams administration, but yes, essentially, we’ve always been allies.
Jacques: Did we French not give the world magnificent cuisine, magnificent fashion, magnificent wine, magnificent music, magnificent literature, magnificent art and magnificent philosophers?
Tom: Um, I don’t know if I’d call Sartre “magnificent,” but nevertheless, on the other hand, it’s not like you French have to look up to the Irish or the Bulgarians for anything.
Jacques: All right, okay, then, so why is it such a big insult for this advertisement to say Mitt Romney speaks French?
Tom: Uh, ah… I guess, first of all, it’s because Americans think the French are… ahem… a bit… well… effeminate, I suppose is the best term – there are certainly stronger ones that Americans use, of course.
Jacques: Effeminate? The French man? This from the American man, who every night watches the television for three hours and makes love for five minutes, about the French man who watches five minutes of television and makes love for three hours?
Tom: Well, that’s just it – the average American man would consider making love for three hours to be a rather effeminate thing to do. Then, of course, there’s the whole intellectual issue. You French are always reading books and arguing about ideas. That reminds Americans that they aren’t fond of thinking, move their lips when they read and get headaches when they have to deal with ideas, which, in turn, makes them angry and want to punch you French right in the mouth so you’re not so snooty anymore. And then there’s Iraq, of course.
Jacques: Iraq? What about it?
Tom: France refused to join George W. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing.
Jacques: Bush forty-three? Him? The one who said Iraq had the weapons of mass destruction, yes? That one? We French were supposed to do what Bush said about Iraq? Really? Tell me then, who was right about Iraq – us, or George W. Bush?
Tom: Oh, you were right about Iraq, no doubt about that. But Americans don’t care if other countries are totally right when America is completely wrong. What Americans care about is which countries will stand beside us even when we are completely wrong. That’s why we like the Australians. Whenever America picks a fight, the Australians send a few troops, give us moral support, speak up for us in the diplomatic community and don’t ask any embarrassing questions. But you French, you would never behave in that fashion – you would insist on having your own opinions and doing whatever you want. That’s why Americans love to eat at Outback steak house, but only served “freedom fries” at the Senate and House cafeterias during the Iraq war. Consequently, as far as Americans are concerned, the Australians are a battalion of manly Crocodile Dundees and you French are a shrieking troupe of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Jacques: I see. So you Americans despise the French because we have culture, because we have our own perspective, because we have class, because we have ideas, because…
Tom: Because you’re a shrieking troupe of cheese-eating surrender monkeys who read too many books, eat fancy food and fornicate all night, yeah, basically.
Jacques: But, be that as it may, does this Gingrich person have to insult this Romney person in South Carolina by using French people, French civilization and French language? Has this Gingrich no sense of honor?
Tom: Um…
Jacques: Is he completely without scruple?
Tom: Ah…
Jacques: Does he have no decency?
Tom: Uh…
Jacques: Has he no courage whatsoever?
Tom: Er…
Jacques: Is he, in fact, some sort of spineless jellyfish?
Tom: Now wait a minute there – be careful what you say, or you’ll owe members of the phylum Cnidaria an apology for comparing them to Newt Gingrich.
Jacques: Very well, in that case, I withdraw my remark about the jellyfishes and ask, is this Gingrich, then, in fact, lower than the excrement of the whale? Why does he not stop this Super-PAC of his from broadcasting this advertisement, which, as far as I am concerned, insults the French by associating them with American politicians?
Tom: Oh, well, there, you see, is the nuance you, as a Frenchman, could reasonably be expected to miss. Because of the election laws here in America, Newt Gingrich can’t tell his Super-PAC to stop running that advertisement.
Jacques: You mean, he is powerless to make them quit?
Tom: Stange as it sounds, yes. Legally, for the Super-PAC to be able to collect huge amounts of anonymously contributed corporately funded bucks, the candidate they support can have absolutely no control over what they say in his or her behalf.
Jacques: Oh, Mec, Mr. Tom-Cat! This makes no sense at all! Now it is my head that is hurting! Je n’ai aucun doute, la prochaine chose que vous dites me rendre fou! I must go!
Tom: La vraie nature de l’American restera toujours un noeud mystérieux qui ne peut jamais l’Europe délie. Au revoir, mon ami!.