Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Romney Vs. France

Ahh, Frenchie. Is there no right wing shtick you won't pander to? Governor Romney has predictably joined the chorus of anti-France sentiment coming from neoconservatives, as the Globe reports. Mitt's greater point -- that America must improve it's commitment to education or risk falling behind in the global economy -- is valid, but his gratuitous dig at the country he spent so many of his formative years in seems like typical Romney posturing. The Boston Phoenix's Adam Reilly has a few words of advice for the governor regarding his newfound Francophobia:

Tread carefully, Mitt! After all, France made you the man you are today. Remember the Vietnam War? Not firsthand, since you spent most of 1966, ’67, and ’68 as a Mormon missionary (complete with draft deferment) in the land of Napoleon and de Gaulle. That horrific car crash that nearly took your life near Bordeaux, when the Citroën you were driving collided with a drunk driver coming the other way — it’s not a pleasant memory. But it taught you a valuable lesson; as you told the Herald a few years ago, "It underscores the fragile nature of life — we are here but a short time and gone." Plus, there’s something spine-tingling messianic about the fact that the gendarme on the scene actually wrote "il est mort" on your passport. How cool is that?