Regardless of how funny, you’re not supposed to laugh when someone slips on the ice or drops their ice cream cone. But come on, we all do. Then, mustering a concerned look, we ask, “My goodness! Are you all right?” And the more pompous the figure, the more we laugh. Well, except for having to feign any concern whatever, that was my reaction to France getting rubbed out by the IOC yesterday. Just unrestrained joy at having the “leader” of Europe’s counterweight to America humiliated – again. Like when Al Czervik - the Rodney Dangerfield character - in “Caddyshack”, piloting a Titanic sized powerboat cuts the insufferably pompous blowhard Judge Elihu Smails’ (Ted Knight) sailboat in half.
Now Jack Chirac is on one incredible losing streak. His poll numbers are down; birth rates are down; economic growth is down; support for the unreadable EU Constitution is down; EU support for French farm subsidies is down; a French name in that nation’s own bicycle race is nowhere to be found in the top 20 or so. The only things on the rise in France are, their willingness to work fewer hours to right the sinking ship, unemployment and Chirac’s opinion of himself. As a good friend and British officer once told me with delight, “We have fought the French in a 100 wars and we have humiliated them every time.” Make that a 101.
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