So there was a post last August where I was told that, generally
speaking, Americans couldn’t care less about Bill Clinton entertaining Miss
Lewinsky (unless it was the other way round). Ok then, I leave it to people who
know better than me.
Let's have another try though...
The former French president has been married
thrice and the current one has been living in sin ever since he lost his
pucelage some 40 years ago (I don't know the exact date). After he's lived 30
years with the former Socialist candidate to the presidency 5 years ago, he now
is the companion of a twice divorced woman with three children of her own.
Now, next month there will another presidential
election in the US.
Am I invited to believe that both the GOP and the Dem. one would have without
any hesitation picked up a candidate who would have been married thrice (and
counting) and another one with four children out of wedlock?
Too bad they didn't have anybody filling the requirements then...
22 commentaires:
Please note there isn't the slightest subliminal moral jugdment here though a touch of irony may not be entirely out of question...
(en plus ça change de Kant for those who've had their fill with our a priori forms of sensibility...)
Who was the first divorced and re-married president in the U.S.?
In a touch of irony, it was Saint Ronald Reagan, largely supported by Christian true believers. Reagan wasn't much of a believer but the "Christians" voted for him and against the avowed Christian Jimmy Carter. Go figure.
This year, the despicable Newt Gingrich--Republican of course--who has had three wives and who believed he could be the candidate.
Evangelical Christians who don't even believe that Mormonism is Christian will vote for Mitt.
Too bad we don't have a candidate like the PM of Australia who is an atheist.
Il est intéressant d'observer combien différentes relativement à la question religieuse sont deux anciennes colonies anglaises.
Les Puritains se sont d'eux-mêmes exilés en Amérique pour fuir les prétendues persécutions religieuses (which ones, I've never known) et ont emporté avec eux le virus.
Les Australiens ont été forcibly expelled into Australia qui -for what I know- sont comme les Européens de ce point de vue.
And to spice it up a little more, the current mistress of the French president was the mistress of a rightist politician of Armenian descent (Patrick Devedjan) for three years while she was married with her second or third husband.
And I'm told this wouldn't make any difference in the U.S... where both the Rep and the Dems wouldn't mind choosing any unmarried candidate with mistresses and children out of wedlocks...
Hmmmm, really ???
Are you attempting to convince us how naughty that the French are? ;) ☺
I've just learned the other day about the French president's mistress being the mistress of another politician of the opposite side of the political spectrum some years ago and I said to myself that the reputation of the French as sex maniacs in the American media may not be entirely wrong at the end of the day.
Fact if the French don't care but I'm not sure there is much to boast eventually.
It reminds of the end of the Roman empire or the Italian Medicis involving popes and cardinals having much fun while the rest of the population was kept under strict control by the Church and the rulers of that time.
Well, some of the French care. My girlfriend, Brigitte (from Marseille) is not amused.
And your friend from Marseille will be even less amused when she'll learn that one of the babes Sarko named in his government is now filing a suit against one of her height (8 and possibly counting) simultaneous lovers so that he reckons he's the father of her girl (who's now 3 ).
Most of the readers in Le Monde object and say they don't want to know and that Le Monde now belongs to the gutter press.
These people are totally clueless in my opinion. Rachida Dati was a minister of the French Republique and it is as such that Le Monde gives the information. But those readers are so politically amorphous that they don't even realise the electorate has the right to know more precisely what kind of crooks and profiteers and incompetent bimbos Sarkozy's world was filled with.
And indeed there's nothing to be amused of and there's no way these scum could have made it in the US (at least at the highest political level).
There was this Anthony Weinberg or something last year who sent pictures of his pant on the Internet (I don't remember the details) and he had to resign. Had he been French, Sarkozy would have promoted him.
You cannot underestimate the filth Sarkozy was the product of, really.
I have spent a month on vacation in the California gladly isolated from the internet. Now I am back for better or for worse.
There was one bachelor elected president, Grover Cleveland
Others such as Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower most likely had mistresses, among other lesser knowns probably.
Hey, great! Ned's back from California. Err... is it you at 1:27 or are you here at 1:58?
Whatever, do you mind a shy Parisian cutie?
Perhaps at 1:32 or 2:10 when I was much younger with no makeup or lipstick. Still none.
1:32 eh? And you say you live in Paris? Interesting...
Ah, the shy, timid Parisians..
I don't know what is so surprising about 1:32. The song was about teenage girls and most the others shown are too old. I once did have hair like Lisa Kudrow though. Here is more like it Surfer Girl
Don't forget this one, Back in the USSR Maybe someone could make a version with pictures.
There's nothing surprising at 1:32. Just pretty girls to look at and I happen to like looking at pretty girls...
Flocon says:
1:32 eh? And you say you live in Paris? Interesting...
And then Flocon says:
There's nothing surprising at 1:32. Just pretty girls to look at and I happen to like looking at pretty girls..
You're a naughty, and not so shy, Parisian, Flocon, and you know it. Mais oui.
And yet another example.... sigh..
CIA Director Petraeus resigns, admits extra-marital affair
The comment with the most thumbs up and a comment that I wholeheartedly agree with:
I fail to see how Petreus' private life has any bearing on his effectiveness as a public servant. Reading the story, one presumes he has fences to mend with his wife, but assuming that the other party involved is a consenting adults and that no illegal conduct was involved, it really isn't the public's business what goes on within or around the edges of his marriage. In thinking that it is, we lose the service of an extremely talented leader.
The reports indicate that Petraeus pressed the president to accept his resignation, and that the president did so reluctantly.
It appears that Petraeus was not forced to resign, but did so on his own initiative because he judged that he had failed to meet a personal standard of conduct.
Cannot a man hold himself to a mark higher than the minimum required to avoid being dismissed?
The comments I have seen on the French sites are uniformly cynical.
A clash of civilizations, indeed.
SemperFidelis
Apparently he had an affair with a subordinate. That changes the situation. If he had the affair with someone not related to his work, I would have no objection, but in both the public and private sectors a relationship with a subordinate is unacceptable.
SemperFidelis,
"The comments I have seen on the French sites are uniformly cynical."
Yes and that is the reason why I posted that thread in the first place: The idea was to emphasize how different the reactions of the French (globally speaking) and Americans (by and large) [at least that is my perception] re the issue of sex and marital relations are.
I was told I was wrong and Americans coudn't care less as well. Bon d'accord.
And then there is this incident involving Petraeus and now I read there is a clash of civilizations...
In the same vein of misconduct we also have the similar case of Christopher Kubasik.
As pertains the clash of civilizations, it may well be the usual split between Protestantism and Catholicism that was addressed on this post six months ago.
But cynicism isn't a sound state of mind and an indication that something is rotten in the hearts and minds of the offenders.
When cynicism concerns not some individuals but a whole nation, it has a political dimension and can be interpreted as a reaction against the moral corruption of the rulers.
The last time there was some decency in French politics was when Lionel Jospin was Prime Minister of Chirac (who by then was nearly powerless according to the Constitution).
Other than that, the party which presents itself as a paragon of virtue may well be the most corrupt of them all (I mean the so-called "green party").
Wherever they look at, the voters see profiteering, hypocrisy and corruption. No wonder cynicism is rising and public morality collapsing.
I read the comments in Le Monde, and there was this one comment (which was mocked by the others).
mariefrance
10 novembre 2012 à 12:36
"«Après plus de 37 ans de mariage, j’ai fait preuve d’un énorme manque de jugement en m’engageant dans une relation extraconjugale. Un tel comportement est inacceptable à la fois comme mari et comme dirigeant d’une organisation comme la nôtre»"
Ce n'est pas en France qu'on verrait un tel sens de l'honneur !
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