Polanski, J Sarkozy, Chirac, Villepin and Berlusconi: A political rant about celebrities, political and otherwise.

In my last job, we were strictly forbidden to discuss politics, I was told by a sage historian because the founders were to the far right of Genghis Khan.  But here, I'm forced to, despite the lack of professional training, a degree in Political Science or any competence.  So feel free to pile on (me).

Last summer, it was Michael Jackson, like Hitler, he refuses to go away.  Now it’s a new bunch.

Every meal's discussion I have had since Roman Polanski was re-arrested has eventually wound its way back to this man/boy/scoundrel/jerk.  Disclosure: I have a 13 year old sophisticated, intelligent, beautiful, worldly, world-travelled, artistic and art-inclined grand-daughter.

So, I think I've heard all the excuses why he should not be extradited, for instance because:

- His parents were killed in the holocaust,
- His wife was killed in bizarre circumstances at a bizarre party at bizarre Jack Nicolson’s house,
- He was young then (a youthful indiscretion) at 43/13,
- He’s won an Oscar,
- Artists can’t be judged like other people,
- It was a long time ago,
- He’s served his time – 42 days for pedophilia, drugging and rape is enough.
- She (13) was sophisticated and probably “asked for it” by posing nude and dressing provocatively,
- She was looking for a starring role with him,
- Her Mother raised her poorly and pushed her,
- She (Samantha Geimer) has had enough publicity and has “forgiven” him,
- The standards of sexual conduct were different then,
- Americans are puritanical.

 

If I were asked by Polanski’s lawyers/public relations’ flaks for advice it would be that with friends and defenders like Woody Allen, Frederic Mitterand and Harvey Weinstein, who needs enemies.

 

Next, Jean Sarkozy, heir-apparent to Little Nicolas, who evidently until a while back lived with his mother (the President of the Republic’s first (of three wives) wife Marie Culioli); until realizing that some face time with Papa could mean he wouldn’t need to take any more exams at undergraduate Law School.  So at 23, with no degrees or credentials or experience, with a name like this, like all French-folk, he figures he can jump the line and go straight to the top of some never-before-heard-of organization called the Epad (L'Etablissement public d'aménagement de La Défense).  Well for once it didn’t work and as opposed to George Bush the lesser, Kim Jong-Il, Bashar al-Assad, Martine LePen and Marie Bove, it appears he settled for a mere seat at the table.

This morning comes news of the question whether the last President of the Republic - Jacques Chirac - will finally be indicted and tried for all the crimes that poor Alain Juppe took the rap for and was exiled to Quebec for a decade ago.  It’s all silly stuff about misuse of public funds, corruption and nepotism, doling out vastly underpriced housing to cronies and a few dozen no-show or false jobs as well as perhaps some William J. Jefferson-type funny money business.  The usual banana republic type stuff (indeed there was a manif outside the Palace at Versailles of folks holding bananas on high, granted about Sarko-Jr, but the point was made.)

And then there’s Dominique Villepin, he of the John Edwards-priced hairdo and books on Napoleon, who now wants a pardon from the very guy he was convicted of concocting a smear campaign against – said Little Nicolas - in an affair which carries the counterintuitive name – Clearstream (if ever there was a stream more murky, I’d like to know about it).  The judge, and I’m quoting from memory and probably mistranslation, said he was more guilty of silence than activity.  His sentence - 18-months reprieved was accompanied by damages of 45,000 Euros, but that’s not what hurts, it’s his public image and the death of his political future.

And finally we come to the personage, who except for Prince Charles, Madonna and Barack Obama, fascinates the French press the most – Silvio Berlusconi. Il Cavaliere, as he is referred to here, is widely regarded as a joke, a buffoon, a clown, but and this is what marks him, knowing all that, the Italians have elected him thrice.  When I was in Bologna earlier this year I asked a very smart friend how the public could have done this, he started by pointing out that we (Americans) had re-elected George Bush the minor, knowing his ineptitude, but then in that totally Italian way, he shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know, I have no explanation.”

Comments

[John Whiting]

Slavoj Žižek on Berlusconi and those who elected him: "Italy today is effectively a kind of experimental laboratory of our future."

[John Whiting]

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