Having heard a long, droning criticism number 2743 of GWB the other day on German TV, it alluded ignorantly to the "hostility" of the president being the commander-in-chief, as if Bush was the only president ever who was called the commander in chief. The opinionated bufoon went on-and-on in complete ignorance of the significance of making a civilian elected leader of the military, and not a Gemeral, or as you seem to have had implied to you, the Secretary of Defense.

MC - the news whoever on France 2 or whatever source is pretending to look like they know what they're talking about is that [b]the Secretary of Defense DOES NOT make policy.[/b]

Sarko is not a chess player - he is a free-rider. Every utterance about the American relationship, international policy, even the bank crisis is an attempt to exert maximum leverage at no cost. It isn't productive or helpful, it does not contribute to the imaginary wonders of "peace and social justice" or any other silly fashion. It is an attempt to keep ones' face in print for his own voters, not the larger world.

Case in point that Sarko saved anyone fropm being hanged by the balls... all he saved him from was a verbal affront: the limitation of virtually all present-day European diplomacy and aid has been reduced to empty htreats to somehow tend to autocrats by throwing press releases at them. Though this seems to take an opposite tack, the verbalism is as effectual as the chatter of appeasement. Forget Putin's idiotic comparison to the Georgian leader, a former human rights attorny, to Saddam Hussein, but rather Saakashvili's characterization that Sarkozy was selling his population which is under pressure and attack up the river for no clear reason:

[i]Mr Saakashvili denounced Mr Sarkozy for that, saying Europe's acquiescence over Georgia was identical to its appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938 after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. "I never imagined that I would be saying such things but unfortunately those are the facts," he said.[/i]

So the desire to see Sarko the strong has little to do with the Russian-Georgian conflict, or anything else for that matter - it has only to do with domestic pride. Like the loony distortions done to defend DSK's reputation attest to, since he was one of the only Frenchman with a world-mouthpiece at time, he will be verbally defended to the death no matter what he does.

You might as well ask: "how many people in France support Sarko?" You can try to undermine anything by asking anyone with a mere majority of votes the same thing.

The fighting in Georgia was a trap. The russians baited it. Anyone above the rank of sargent in the russian army knows that they are utterly incapable to "rapidly reacting" to anything as they claimed. The entire thing was a melodrama.

As for anyone believeing that the US would open fire on the Russian military on their border is lunacy. It's obviously an idea that originated with some political faker in Europe, becuase the same bunch who would turn out such an opinion and state it as a fact are the same sort who don't think we walk on our hind legs anyway.

We NEVER suggeest anything of the sort. DO not LIE to me about what we said about it. What we observed, plain as day, was a kind of public affection in France particularly for the idea of kicking the Georgians when they were under attack because these very same people could infer somehow that supporting Russia is some kind of blow to the United States.

We didn't suggest anything along the lines of conspiracy. We NEVER suggest the kind of "home wisdom" so common in the feeble press that you're exposed to daily that eat that kind of thing up.

If you disagree, do a search and find one example of us theorizing anything about the Russian conflict with Georgia as some sort of European conspiracy.

Go ahead. Find it. If you're going to be that irresponsible as to simply throw any sort of accusation that you think sounds nice, then prove it.