LE BLOG NOUVEAU EST ARRIVE
The new blog,
AMERICANA,
is at this address:
http://americana.blog.lemonde.fr/
Cheers!

2007: another year, another blog
Cosmo Nyc will take a short break for travels and transformation in early 2007- new blog to follow.

Washington never fails to disappoint: even as George Bush finally utters the word "mistake" about the Iraqi adventure, and offers change that looks mostly like a gradual deepening of the same madness, and democrats who now control the majority in Congress promise at best a non binding resolution condemning the administration's policy.
Do they really think that will be a sufficient electoral insurance, by 2008, to absolve themselves of all responsibility for a disaster they had a chance to derail from its inception?
There will likely be investigations, denunciations, but no one seems to think the "thumping" message of november 2006 should be taken too seriously after all: action will have to wait. There might reasonable explanations for this lack of engagement. The situation has so deteriorated that no choice is satisfactory, and disaster is bound to fester a while longer no matter options are finally chosen. Yet, what could be the rationale for not starting immediately on a long-term solution? Does it really make sense to want to retake the White House, only with the certainty that the problem will be made even worse by 2 extra years of chest-pounding, and no decision-making? Would it not make sense to attack some of the most symbolic issues at hand - such as the closing of Guantanamo, now opened in legal limbo for 5 years? Or will whatever possible changes between now and 2008 be left to the old hands now arrived at the rescue of George Jr.- the veterans of Bush-the-father's cabinet and other ancient Reaganites? No wonder the comparisons with Vietnam, initially off target, suddenly seem appropriate.

European governments knew of the CIA flights: since Condoleezza Rice's declarations in December, it had become more and more obvious.
The latest installment of the European Parliament's investigation, before the publication of the full report in January, documents the complicity of 12 out of 25 governments (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK), and the scale of the operations (1245 stop-overs, including those organized for "extraordinary renditions"). Claudio Flava, who heads the investigation, has commended Germany and Spain for their cooperation with his inquiry. Other governments, he notes, have been extremely reluctant to help. So was apparently Javier Solana, the former NATO secretary-general, now EU Commissioner for International Affairs: according to Claudio Flava, his testimony was less than complete.
The French judiciary certainly is not very curious. It rejected the complaint by two human rights organizations, about 5 suspected flights that stopped in the Paris region. The official explanation: not enough information is available about those flights.

Race creeps back in the media conversation: The topic of the day is Michael Richards racial rant at a West Hollywood club. The man whose claim to fame is to have played the obnoxious neighbor Kramer on the "Seinfeld" show lost it to a couple of hecklers. An ugly, vulgar, not funny side came out in full view as he hurled one racist epithet after the other, with increasing rage. A very miserable performance, which starts a cycle of more miserable performances, with the predictable "apology tour". The American media asks gravely if this is the sign that racism is still alive and well - making it sound like it would be a real surprise. Yet that same media regularly reports on racism, but it is mostly the institutional kind, tagged to a malevolent bureaucracy or corporation, or the cartoon sort - imputed to marginal or marginalized losers. The surprise, if any, can only be that it was uttered by a television icon that the media assumed was "one of them": well groomed, properly progressive, and mostly inoffensive.

Nancy, Segolene... great day for women? Not so sure. The California democrat and the French socialist triumphed today. It was expected. The first one will be speaker of the House; the second, her party's candidate at the presidential election.
Much was made of the fact that Nancy Pelosi did not get what she had wished for: John Murtha as her main man. The veteran Marine turned politician in the seventies is the most outspoken - if not always articulate - opponent to the way the Bush administration has been conducting the war in Iraq. Her fellow party members preferred the man less likely to annoy them, the unctuous Steny Hoyer.
Segolene Royal, the French socialist motherly figure, beat two old timers to the presidential candidacy: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Finance minister, and Laurent Fabius, former Prime minister.
In spite of having been a cabinet member herself, and glossing over her long-time involvement in the party's mechanics (and we're not thinking of hubby party president François Hollande), the first female candidate managed to instill the idea that she is a "fresh face". So fresh, in fact, that she should be forgiven the lameness of her program, and her frequent veering into conservative social positions. Could she have been watching Hillary?
Never-the-less, the mood is set for "change" in France as well, with the forecast of a presidential duel opposing the populist and popular interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy to Segolene Royal.
Yet it will be interesting to see how long it takes before the first female candidate is tightly "counseled"... and how long it takes the French left to lament the import of American-style "primaries", a first in France to select a presidential candidate.

One week after the election, the surviving republicans are clinging to old habits. Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott... Lamar Alexander, beaten for the whip position, likes to call it a "come-back"; it is more like a flash-back. And it the "nothing changes" category, the testimonies of the intelligence and army chiefs insist on the continuation of more-of-the-same in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the democrats? Waiting for Baker. Or Hillary. Or somebody.