Don't Say You Weren't Warned

Dear France,

Good grief! I just read in the NYT that Sarko has a ranch.

Two days before the first round of the presidential election last month, Nicolas Sarkozy donned a red checked shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, mounted a small white horse named Universe and rode around the Camargue country in France’s deep south. A gaggle of reporters and cameramen followed him in a cart pulled by a tractor. The black bulls in the nearby pasture stayed away.

“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.”

At least your president isn't afraid of horses.

I have to cop to not following your elections too closely. But now I read this article and wonder if you learned anything from our experience these last few years. Bush and Newt Gingrich like Sarkozy. That's right: Bush and Newt Gingrich. Easily two of the most loathed men in America like your president. That should have told you to run from this guy faster than Bush ran from New Orleans after his post-Katrina photo op.

Listen, this is all by way of saying that when the merde hits the fan over there and Sarko's off rustling cows, don't ever tell us you didn't see it coming.

Bisous,

res

Photo: Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse