Sarkozy Says Obama is His Pal

18 Comments

1. 

   Quentin on July 25, 2008 at 10:14 am

   It will make my head explode too.

   • 

     BooMan on July 25, 2008 at 10:28 am

     why?

     • 

       huchiun on July 25, 2008 at 12:20 pm

       No deep analysis or anything to support this, but there may be some opportunity for rapport between these two.  They are both centrists and may be fairly close in outlook in many areas.  Internationally, they are both looking to re-engage their countries, so they have a mutual, complementary need (Sarkozy, with the US, Obama with EU partners).

       They are close in age.  Both began their professional careers as lawyers.   Both are very good public speakers and show signs of high intelligence and good strategic thinking (at least for political campaigns :^).  There are some interesting similarities in family history – they were both essentially abandoned by their fathers, both of whom were immigrants, and both of whom were high achievers.  

       • 

         Knut Wicksell on July 25, 2008 at 12:54 pm

         This has nothing to do with Sarkozy.  This is the French Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, who have been in the diplomacy business for a century and a half longer than the United States has been a country.  No country in the world other than Isreal and some nations who want to do us harm want to see McCain President.  They will be sticking it to him whenever they can.  Iran did it last week through their SCIRI representative in Baghdad (the current premier).  I wonder if learning how to count to five is too tough a qualification for most MSM journalists.  They can’t find the nose on their face.

     • 

       Quentin on July 25, 2008 at 1:57 pm

       With all the talk here at this site about ‘progressives’ how is it possible to think that a recommendation from Sarkozy could be desirable or supportive? Anyway, I have a visceral dislike of this man and his ‘anglo-saxon reform’ meme: make the rich richer, the poor poorer.

2. 

   MikeInOhio on July 25, 2008 at 10:28 am

   They will be holding a joint press conference. Maybe Sarkozy will come right out an endorse Obama.

   I’m not too sure whether this is a good thing for Obama……..but there is this which, I believe, is quite rich with irony.

   If Senator John McCain wasn’t the secret favorite of French President Nicolas Sarkozy among all American candidates to the White House, he certainly should be now. In comments to the press following their meeting at the Elysée Friday, McCain spoke in such high praise of Sarkozy that it seemed as though he was on the stump for the Frenchman’s re-election rather than acting on his own political ambitions. Indeed, McCain was so laudatory of Sarkozy’s actions and role in improving the ties between the two nations that he predicted “our relationship with France will continue improving now no matter who becomes President of the United States.” McCain’s huddle with around 40 journalists in the courtyard of the Elysée Palace only avoided becoming a full-out love fest due to one reason: Sarkozy wasn’t there.

   I’m sure McCain’s “base” will conveniently forget how his visit with Sarkozy was reported.

3. 

   mainsailset on July 25, 2008 at 10:30 am

   or make her adam’s apple implode, i’ll take either.

4. 

   MikeInOhio on July 25, 2008 at 10:40 am

   And there was this little ditty from Sleepy……er, Fred Thompson writing at Townhall in May 2007.  It was entitled, “A Toast To Monsieur Sarkozy”

   The election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency of France has been a serious blow to those who claim that America has earned the undying hatred of Europeans. Oh, to be sure, the French media hates us, but there are a lot of people who say ours does too. Regardless, Sarkozy’s victory has sent shock waves through the world’s media centers.

   …

   A French president who openly admires America is an embarrassment to those who view us as the country bumpkin cousins of the sophisticated Europeans. American pundits and politicians who say we should change our foreign policies to win the European popularity contest ought to be feeling a little embarrassed too.

   They have not only sent a message to anti-democratic forces inside and outside their borders, I believe they are telling us something even more important. We are beginning, I think, to see our old friends and allies put aside disagreements and rivalries to do what has to be done. It has been a long road, but the forces of civilization and order are beginning to understand that we are in a global struggle against the forces of death and destruction.

   Maybe it’s time to rethink the “boycott France” movement that got so much attention a few years ago. Americans once toasted General Lafayette, and his son Georges Washington Lafayette. I think this would be a good time to toast Monsieur Sarkozy. And if you’re going to use wine for that toast, make it French wine.

   Wonder if he’s still feeling the love?

5. 

   Brendan Skwire on July 25, 2008 at 11:00 am

   or maybe it’ll cause John McCain to either have a heart attack (non-lethal, I’m not THAT evil) or to totally fly off the handle. Not just snippy remarks, but a full-on fit of rage.

6. 

   Oui on July 25, 2008 at 11:15 am

   .
   Strange bedfellows, must be poltically beneficial to both.

   ‘Obama is my buddy,’ Sarkozy says

   “I am the only French person who knows him,” Sarkozy said, recounting that he had met Obama during a visit to the United States in 2006, when he was Interior Minister. It will do Sarkozy little harm to present himself as close to Obama, who is very popular in France.

   Sarkozy himself is trusted by fewer than 40 per cent of his compatriots, but in a poll published July 16 by the Pew Research Center , Obama received 84 per cent approval ratings in France, the highest in Europe. By comparison, Obama’s putative Republican opponent for the US presidency was trusted by only 33 per cent of French respondents.

   Obama’s popularity in France is striking in a country where minorities have made little progress toward equality.

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

   • 

     Fran on July 25, 2008 at 11:42 am

     I wonder what they ask in the polls.

     I mean if they would ask me would I have more confidence in Obama or McCain as next President of the US – of course I would choose Obama. But that does not mean he has my approval. There are to many things I disagree with him.

     • 

       Fran on July 25, 2008 at 11:44 am

       Sorry, hit the post button before deleting – “I wonder what they ask in the polls.”

7. 

   idredit on July 25, 2008 at 11:36 am

   Reuters: (Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:18am EDT)

   Obama’s foreign trip: Mission accomplished

   WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Barack Obama looked and sounded like a natural in the role of potential U.S. president during a carefully scripted overseas trip this week, passing a big test in the battle for the White House.

   The first-term senator from Illinois smoothly executed his debut on the world stage, frustrating Republican rival John McCain and disappointing critics waiting for a telling mistake that would highlight his inexperience.

   For Obama, who concludes the 7-country trip on Saturday, it was a chance to dispel doubts about his foreign policy expertise and display his credibility as a possible commander in chief.

   “Obama passed the test, which was to show he can handle himself with foreign leaders and avoid a major gaffe,” said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota.

   “It doesn’t transform the race and it doesn’t win him the presidency — but failure could have cost him the presidency. Now he can move on,” he said.

8. 

   MikeInOhio on July 25, 2008 at 12:02 pm

   Is there anyone else out there with a little disquieting sense of uneasiness watching Obama’s reception in Europe?  And it all has to do with how the large set of up-to-now uninformed “independent” voters in this country might view the scenes and the coverage of Obama-mania in Europe.  And I believe it is a view which will be more strongly pushed by the corporate media in the coming days and weeks as the aftereffects of this trip wind down.  An excerpt from The Agonist spells out a little of it.

   I can certainly understand – and have written about it in relation to Iran uncounted times – what we call a “rally around the flag effect” in political science, the populace backing an even hated leadership when the nation or people are under attack or just criticism from abroad. I can also understand that just one year after the beef over Iraq Sen. John Kerry being called “too French” came down to a kiss of death. What’s completely beyond my understanding is how a candidate enjoying a positive image abroad – I’m not talking of such dubious do-gooder institutions as the UN but of allied nations like Germany and Great Britain – can turn into a handicap. What’s the matter with Kansas? What happened to the Republicans watching in raptures the crowds cheering Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech? Don’t Americans want their politicians to be popular, their country to be admired abroad again? Does Joe Klein’s characterization of McCain that he “would place a higher priority on finding new enemies than on cultivating new friends” apply to more Americans than I ever thought possible? Do they relish in their president being feared, do they favor being more isolated and being perceived a greater threat to world peace than Iran? Is, if 4,000+ dead in Iraq aren’t, even George Bush himself admitting that his “dead or alive” swagger might have been over the top still not enough to discredit shooting-from-the-hip foreign policy?

   To be sure, we’re not talking of the notorious Europe-is-from-Venus-America-from-Mars fringe of die-hard neocons here, but of such a significant number of independent voters that the Obama campaign itself worried about the turnout – of course not about nobody showing up, as the candidate joked, but about too many. Anne Applebaum on Slate disagrees and believes to have detected a positive sea change of attitude in the American electorate towards a more open-minded, internationalism-affirming world view, yet spick-and-span-new polls from the make-or-break swing states of Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan see John McCain making substantial gains in the very week of Obama’s overseas trip.

   I hope Anne Applebaum is right, but if Margaret Carlson got a point that a majority of Americans – stalwart Republicans and a bulk of independents that is – are inherently anti-internationalist, jingoist beyond remedy, and favor a bellicose unilateralism, despite all that happened over the past seven years, a mere change at the top will not do it. If despite of all the atrocities we came to see for seven years a large crowd in an allied nation cheering an American politician talking of freedom has become an asset you can spin into the negative, America’s problems go much deeper than George Bush, start becoming a matter of character, and should give us food for very serious thought.

   Is my lack of confidence and comfort in the “independent” voter justified here?  Could this be why some of the polls are really not budging very much, despite the tsunami of positive vibes Obama is evoking around the world?  Could there really be a dark side to Obama-mania?

   • 

     on July 25, 2008 at 12:52 pm

     I think your concerns are well founded. The main reason I think there’s little to worry about is that we’re still too far from the election. It’s true that in the past week, it’s as if Obama has been running to be President of the World as opposed to the president of the US; I’m not sure what the point was, other than to get under McCain’s skin and show off to American elites, as opposed to the public in general. If Obama’s doing well abroad pleases the corporate elite, the corporate media will not give Obama’s “internationalism” negative coverage, and the public will forget about it.

     Sarkozy’s a wild cannon. It’s considered to be highly inappropriate for a head of state to take sides in a foreign election, although it’s amusing that Sarkozy has done that. It fits in with his shtick.

   • 

     Knut Wicksell on July 25, 2008 at 12:59 pm

     You are right.  But the beautiful thing is that this was done in July.  It establishes Obama’s foreign policy creds, but leaves him three months to pound McCain at home.  People’s attention span is short.  Obama’s people understand perfectly who and what they are up against, and will be running their ads day and night over the next few weeks to counteract the uppdity n**ger meme the thugs and their msm minions have been trying to construct.  I noted on Atrios that they gave Adam Nagourney a real shot over the bow last night concerning his article in the Times.  These guys have brass knuckles, and they are going to use them against journalists who step over the line.  The more Obama is clearly winning, the more the knuckles will be used.  It’s the only thing journalists understand.  Power.

     • 

       MikeInOhio on July 25, 2008 at 1:18 pm

       I had to chuckle while reading Gabriel Sherman’s blurb about this over at TNR.  The press isn’t taking too kindly to it all.  There are rumblings that they will take their ball and go home if Obama doesn’t start to play nice like……..well, you know who.

       Reporters are grumbling more and more that the campaign is acting like the Prom Queen. They gripe that it is “arrogant” and “control[ling],” and the campaign’s own belief that Obama is poised to make history isn’t endearing, either. The press certainly helped Obama get so far so fast; the question is, how far can he get if his campaign alienates them?

       This whole article is one big f*#$ing whine.

       Reporters who have covered Obama’s biography or his problems with certain voter blocs have been challenged the most aggressively. “They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life,” one reporter says. “The whole Obama narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true. So they have to be protective of the crown jewels.”

       Maybe McCain can fire up his grill and have them all over for a little love-fest and some BBQ after he finishes touring the sausage stores here in Ohio.  I hear he’s put up a new tire swing in the old oak tree.

9. 

   idredit on July 25, 2008 at 12:49 pm

   why is it Sarkozy, Merkel and Brown do not have the need to wear flag lapel pins?

   What did we do to show patriotism before 9/11 and “homeland” words were injected into our language?

   Are all those pols who do not wear flag pins unpatriotic?