Today's edition of "Fuck the French."
Look at the garbage Bernard-Henry Levy's written about Strauss-Kahn's arrest. Take note in particular of this bit:
What I do know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs.
What I know is that nothing, no suspicion whatever (for let’s remind ourselves that, as I write these lines, we are dealing only with suspicions!), permits the entire world to revel in the spectacle, this morning, of this handcuffed figure, his features blurred by 30 hours of detention and questioning, but still proud.
What I know as well is that nothing, no earthly law, should also allow another woman, his wife, admirable in her love and courage, to be exposed to the slime of a public opinion drunk on salacious gossip and driven by who knows what obscure vengeance.
And what I know even more is that the Strauss-Kahn I know, who has been my friend for 20 years and who will remain my friend, bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere. Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally, but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate, obviously no, it’s absurd.
This morning, I hold it against the American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.
Got that? Maybe he's a rapist, maybe he's not, but how *dare* you treat him like a commoner! He's above your puerile notions of "justice."
I am troubled by a system of justice modestly termed “accusatory,” meaning that anyone can come along and accuse another fellow of any crime-and it will be up to the accused to prove that the accusation is false and without basis in fact.
Got that? This guy's *French*, you understand. His nation is one in which if you are tried for a crime, you have no right to refuse self-incrimination. You can refuse to speak, but your silence can, and will, be held against you in a court of law. His nation is one in which prosecutors have no burden of proving your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
And he lectures us for strip-searching a wealthy white guy just like some thug who rapes a woman in an alley.
I hold it against all those who complacently accept the account of this other young woman, this one French, who pretends to have been the victim of the same kind of attempted rape, who has shut up for eight years but, sensing the golden opportunity, whips out her old dossier and comes to flog it on television.
Got that? He doesn't know what happened in a hotel room a couple of days ago, but he *does* know what happened to this French woman 8 years ago, and know she's pretending.
And, oh, this shit masquerading as moral righteousness isn't just coming from Levy, "ne of France's most famed philosophers, a journalist, and a bestselling writer...a leading thinker on religious issues, genocide, and international affairs." Check out a member of Strauss-Kahn's Socialist party in Parliament:
"There's a general feeling of a media, a judicial fury -- of a lynching," Jack Lang, France's former minister of culture and education and a Socialist Party lawmaker, told Europe 1 radio.
Lang called the American justice system "inhumane." "For 48 hours now, only the side of the accusation has been heard ... and the versions given by police have been contradictory," he said. "The refusal to allow him out on bail, when no violent crime has been committed -- even in America suspects are usually let go on bail if a violent crime has not been committed."
I'll leave aside Lang's characterization of this as a lynching; he's another Frenchman and can perhaps be excused for the racial tone-deafness and abject ignorance inherent in comparing a lawful arrest to a lynching. But his notion that there's no violent crime is at issue here? He owns every last bit of that.
Fuck. The. French.
What I do know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs.
What I know is that nothing, no suspicion whatever (for let’s remind ourselves that, as I write these lines, we are dealing only with suspicions!), permits the entire world to revel in the spectacle, this morning, of this handcuffed figure, his features blurred by 30 hours of detention and questioning, but still proud.
What I know as well is that nothing, no earthly law, should also allow another woman, his wife, admirable in her love and courage, to be exposed to the slime of a public opinion drunk on salacious gossip and driven by who knows what obscure vengeance.
And what I know even more is that the Strauss-Kahn I know, who has been my friend for 20 years and who will remain my friend, bears no resemblance to this monster, this caveman, this insatiable and malevolent beast now being described nearly everywhere. Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally, but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate, obviously no, it’s absurd.
This morning, I hold it against the American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.
Got that? Maybe he's a rapist, maybe he's not, but how *dare* you treat him like a commoner! He's above your puerile notions of "justice."
I am troubled by a system of justice modestly termed “accusatory,” meaning that anyone can come along and accuse another fellow of any crime-and it will be up to the accused to prove that the accusation is false and without basis in fact.
Got that? This guy's *French*, you understand. His nation is one in which if you are tried for a crime, you have no right to refuse self-incrimination. You can refuse to speak, but your silence can, and will, be held against you in a court of law. His nation is one in which prosecutors have no burden of proving your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
And he lectures us for strip-searching a wealthy white guy just like some thug who rapes a woman in an alley.
I hold it against all those who complacently accept the account of this other young woman, this one French, who pretends to have been the victim of the same kind of attempted rape, who has shut up for eight years but, sensing the golden opportunity, whips out her old dossier and comes to flog it on television.
Got that? He doesn't know what happened in a hotel room a couple of days ago, but he *does* know what happened to this French woman 8 years ago, and know she's pretending.
And, oh, this shit masquerading as moral righteousness isn't just coming from Levy, "ne of France's most famed philosophers, a journalist, and a bestselling writer...a leading thinker on religious issues, genocide, and international affairs." Check out a member of Strauss-Kahn's Socialist party in Parliament:
"There's a general feeling of a media, a judicial fury -- of a lynching," Jack Lang, France's former minister of culture and education and a Socialist Party lawmaker, told Europe 1 radio.
Lang called the American justice system "inhumane." "For 48 hours now, only the side of the accusation has been heard ... and the versions given by police have been contradictory," he said. "The refusal to allow him out on bail, when no violent crime has been committed -- even in America suspects are usually let go on bail if a violent crime has not been committed."
I'll leave aside Lang's characterization of this as a lynching; he's another Frenchman and can perhaps be excused for the racial tone-deafness and abject ignorance inherent in comparing a lawful arrest to a lynching. But his notion that there's no violent crime is at issue here? He owns every last bit of that.
Fuck. The. French.