Sick French

I just wanted to point this out. Unbiased news writer Philippe Boulet-Gercourt has written an article in Le Nouvel Observateur entitled "Charming No More: Strauss-Kahn Braces for the Wrath of American
Puritanism", which has been translated by Worldcrunch and published by Time. This headline alone is noteworthy, let's discuss it. The apparently [formerly] charming Mr. Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a bathroom, forced a maid to perform a sex act on him, held her temporarily captive, and attempted to rape her. Mr. Boulet-Gercourt apparently feels that it is "puritanical" to bring Mr. Strauss-Kahn to justice for this. Was this just a natural act for Mr. Strauss-Kahn? Is the maid just being overly sensitive? Is this how they do things in France, the great nation known for, well, being underhanded, weasly and just plain contemptible?

Mr. Boulet-Gercourt seems to imply that the only person who is completely in the right here is Mr. Strauss-Kahn, and he goes on to give numerous examples of consensual sex and how these somehow justify what Mr. Strauss-Kahn did to this maid. He also decries how Mr. Strauss-Kahn's flight to quickly exit the country after committing sexual assault and imprisonment will somehow bring disrepute on the French people for being "cowardly and depraved", as if they needed any help in doing so. Finally, we are told of the so-called
smear campaign against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, how he has been allegedly-unfairly called "a disreputable man" who "wallowed in sex", and how this latest event is somehow going to reflect badly on him, and is somehow the fault of America or those committing the initial "smear campaign", which sounds fairly accurate to me.

At NO POINT in the article does Mr. Boulet-Gercourt say anything resembling "if Mr. Strauss-Kahn committed this horrible act, he should be held accountable for his actions and punished". I can sum this up pretty simply. If there was ONE THING that any French writer could have written that could have made the situation with Mr. Strauss-Kahn any worse, Mr. Boulet-Gercourt has done it.

Here, in the land of people with non-hyphenated last names, we still believe that raping people is a crime, and we punish criminals. We believe that criminals should be brought to justice, and we don't try to smear other people and other countries for the crimes committed by individuals. Mr. Strauss-Kahn is a criminal and a sicko, and while he may be French, we don't necessarily equate his actions with the nation of France or the French people
on-the-whole. Mr. Boulet-Gercourt, you have brought to light, by standing up for Mr. Strauss-Kahn's disgusting actions and blaming everyone else but the perpetrator, that maybe you ARE worthy of the contempt that most
Americans have for your country.