The Right in the USA seem to have a particular need to identify their domestic adversaries (the libruls) with all sorts of Yurpians of whom the French (cheese eating surrender monkeys who never said thanks for being rescued from Nazism) and the Scandinavian socialists are the most vile.  This is because the Libruls keep looking to Europe for examples that there are alternatives to free market neo-conservativism.  

Using this Yurpian angle to put down the Libruls has the added benefit of appealing to US Nationalism/Imperialism - the shining city on a hill/greatest nation on earth sort of stuff.  US libruls can thus be defined as not being real Amurkans at all, but French speaking elitists who prefer European food/culture to the native brew and who are therefore not really being patriotic at all.

Yurpians are better off just laughing at this stuff - it bears no relationship on the realities of Europe at all, but is part of an internal US power struggle between Conservatives and Liberals where cartoon stereotypes of Europe are used to illustrate a domestic argument between xenophobic and chauvinistic nationalism and an attempt to create a more informed and globalised world view.

Barack Obama will undoubtedly transcend those stereotypes, and will expand US consciousness and horizons about the middle and far east as well - so that ignorance of the world cannot contribute to the creation of more Vietnams and Iraqs.  Its about the US growing up out of the Disney world created for them by the neo-cons.  

In the meantime, we in Europe shouldn't be too complacent about our future either.  We don't have the political structures, never mind the leadership capable of transforming our polities in the way Barack just might in the US.  Wouldn't it be ironic if Barack transformed the US to the point where it became the leading producer of sustainable energy in the world - whilst we wallowed in our petty rivalries.

notes from no w here

one made:

"we're no worse than the French"

LOL!

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

You OK Jerome ? You were very grumpy in the E forum:

"Journalists are so f%$*ing stupid." All of them ? ! You sound like nanne :-)

Here you seem quite paranoid. Keillor was objecting to one Frenchman and one book. If being rude about BHL means someone is anti-French, then quite a few French people are anti-French.

It's still absurd to see his remarks about the French, Swedes and Danes as negative about them (by the way, he married a Danish woman and lived in Denmark for a few years). He's just obviously relieved that many citizens of other countries now have a positive reaction to the American political situtaion  after 8 years of the Bush gang.

Checking him out I find he has a nice radio programme about literature and what do you know, during the last week he respectfully included two - wait for it - French intellectuals - Camus and Barthes ! :-)

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/11/07

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2008/11/12

Not bad for US radio. As he says at the end of each programme:

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."  :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

Jerome, I read the article that BHL put out in the Atlantic, and it was utter crap. BHL living up to his (French) rep as a living self-parody of the Left Bank intellectual. Think of it this way, in bashing BHL, Keillor is just being French.  Or just think of how many French people, yourself included, would respond if one of BHL's good neo-con buddies like Marty Peretz did the same sort of hackwork on France.