Out With The Old

Out With The Old - Powerline's Deacon reminds me of something that I wrote about quite a bit last year, but haven't touched on much lately. The next year is likely to see our "allies" Chirac and Schroeder retiring from politics.

Deacon
points out that this isn't necessarily good news, on the face of it:

Basically, Chirac's party was hammered in regional elections at the end of March. As the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland put it, "French voters succeeded where the Bush administration failed: They have punished President Jacques Chirac and his center-right government." In fact, they gave the once-discredited Socialist Party control over 20 of the country's 21 regional administrations -- and defeated every one of the 19 Chirac Cabinet ministers running for local office.

Deacon points out that this isn't in itself a good thing; unlike Schroeder's erosion, the Socialists are advancing in France (the center-right Christiandemokraten are picking up seats in the German parliament).

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a silver lining or a darker one; the French socialists will be likely even softer on actually fighting terror in general than Chirac, and will likely be no less intransigent than he was in the UN.

But I can't help wondering if getting Chirach - and his deep ties to Hussein - out of office won't help.

Assuming, of course, that the Socialists weren't also on Hussein's payroll.

Anyone?

Posted by Mitch at April 9, 2004 05:09 AM