Saturday, June 05, 2004
Waking up on the wrong side of the 18th century
This is a truly bizarre piece in the NYT. It starts with the rather simple idea that many French politicians profess to love America but not its president:
After oddly characterizing the notion that one could love American ideals but not Bush as "very French" and "subtle", the piece gets to its real point:
This idea---"L'etat, c'est Bush"---would be more at home in Loius XIV's France than in the America that wrote the Constitution. That document gives pride of place to Congress as representing the people. Its writers saw the task of government as representing, balancing, and harnessing diverse interests and ideas, not in finding some Leviathan in which to vest nation- and statehood. And since the constitutionalists eventually won this 18th century argument (not without a lot of blood and suffering along the way), it is very odd to see an American reporter criticize the "French" (in his view, some sort of national gesalt) for praising these very constitutionalist ideals as what they love about America.
Let me second the view: I love America, and because I love what it stands for, I detest George W. Bush, who seems determined to wreck the very constitutional order he presides over. My stance is reasoned (not "subtle"), patriotic, and shared by tens of millions of my fellow citizens.
Politicians speak of saying yes to America but no to Mr. Bush. The newspaper Libération warns Mr. Bush that he should not take President Jacques Chirac's expected expressions of gratitude as directed at him, but rather at America. Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, says Mr. Bush is viewed "as the exact opposite of the values that make us love America."
After oddly characterizing the notion that one could love American ideals but not Bush as "very French" and "subtle", the piece gets to its real point:
The fact is, whether France likes it or not, Mr. Bush cannot be distinguished from America. He has the support of roughly half the United States. ...
Of course, there is another big slice of America, the one closer to the French idea of the American soul, that loathes Mr. Bush.... These two camps make up America today and will face off in a fiercely contested election. At least until that day in November, Mr. Bush represents America, in all its many facets, the one that loves him and the one that loathes him. To pretend otherwise is ultimately misleading....Bush is America, just as Chirac is France. The two nations' highest offices represent every shade of opinion that makes up their democracies. No separate national essence exists.
This idea---"L'etat, c'est Bush"---would be more at home in Loius XIV's France than in the America that wrote the Constitution. That document gives pride of place to Congress as representing the people. Its writers saw the task of government as representing, balancing, and harnessing diverse interests and ideas, not in finding some Leviathan in which to vest nation- and statehood. And since the constitutionalists eventually won this 18th century argument (not without a lot of blood and suffering along the way), it is very odd to see an American reporter criticize the "French" (in his view, some sort of national gesalt) for praising these very constitutionalist ideals as what they love about America.
Let me second the view: I love America, and because I love what it stands for, I detest George W. Bush, who seems determined to wreck the very constitutional order he presides over. My stance is reasoned (not "subtle"), patriotic, and shared by tens of millions of my fellow citizens.
