Worldview Item of the Day
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in the news again because of his “short temper” after a passerby at a trade fair he bumped into called him “dirty” and he replied by calling the passerby a jerk. Unfortunately for Sarkozy, this was all caught on video and now on YouTube and elsewhere.
It seems to me that the French are suffering some culture shock about having a president who speaks his mind and acts like a human being, even one they don’t necessarily like sometimes. It seems to me that France is learning a lesson that we have endured since George HW Bush took office.
The lesson is that we elect human beings to office, with all of their faults and foibles. Perhaps, if we accepted politicians for who they are instead of who we want them to be, we would all be a lot better off.
I hope Sarkozy continues to be the snarky, unabashed man that he is. It will be good for France in the same way that having a temper-riddled 70-year-old man in the White House would be. Maybe they’ll both inject a little reality into our unreasonable expectations of politicians.
