French Bashing

Enough with the French bashing!

It's understandable that uber-hatemonger Bill O'Reilly mindlessly engages in it; but Saturday's THREE French-assaulting editorials on the opinion page of the Los Angeles Times demonstrates that America needs to find a psychiatrist to help her overcome her debilitating Francophobia.

Editorial Number 1
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-apt12mar12,0,1574289.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

Editorial Number 2
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nato12mar12,0,5654799.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

Editorial Number 3
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-film12mar12,0,7363326.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

Here's my letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,

Oh my,did you eat some bad escargot?

Are you grumpy because you can't get your hands on any good foie gras
in California?

Your panties are certainly in a twist over la belle France.

The next time some bumpkin tells me that the French are arrogant, I'm
going to whip out a copy of yesterday's (March 12) LA Times editorial page to
show them what arrogance really is.

If France is such a "minor power" then why would you waste your ink and
brain cells whining about a corrupt French politician -- were you too afraid to
tackle Tom Delay's malfeasance, or how about Paul Bremer's missing billions in
Iraq?; why are you having a hissy fit about the unwillingness of France to pour
Euros and manpower into a destabilized Iraq not of their making -- wouldn't your
time have been better spent mulling over the future of this unwarranted and
bankrupting war in which our country is wallowing?; and, it was most arrogant of
you to complain about how [tiny] France, a country with the size and the
population of California, chooses to subsidize and nurture their petite, but
noble, film industry.

If you would have bothered to have done some fact checking, instead of
spouting off cliches about France, you could have read McDonald's most recent
annual report to discover that McDonald's is no longer thriving in France.

Yes, there's ten percent unemployment in France, but at least they are
honest about their numbers. What's the true unemployment percentage in the
U.S.? You remove the unemployed from the tally if they quit looking for
work.

Yes, the French deficit is a little above the EU cap . . . but good
Lord, have you bothered taking a peek at the U.S. deficit? It's a tsunami
compared to France's bathtub splash of overspending.

And by the way, you used Poland and the Netherlands to demonstrate how
good American allies act. Both of those countries are pulling out their
troops this year . . . and it's not because everything is hunky-dory and they
can proudly leave a peaceful Iraq. They've seen Iraq for the quagmire it is.

Look in your own backyard and solve your own problems. Homelessness,
Rising Poverty, Health Insurance Crisis, Your Crashing Currency. Don't be
so arrogant as to presume you know how France should run its affairs.

If you'd like to see the real France, you can come over and spend a
week with me.
Libby Pratt