Posted on 05/25/2006 4:40:26 AM PDT by unionblue83
If you haven’t been following the Clearstream scandal in France, you’re in for a good guffaw.
Chirac and his chief Musketeer, Prime Minister Dominique Galouzeau de Villepin, have been caught in the act of some old-fashioned political skullduggery. And this time, it looks like someone has barred the doors.
Remember: this is the French president who could face an indictment on corruption charges the minute he leaves the Elysee palace, stemming from his days as Mayor of Paris. (Chirac allegedly kept a safe full of cash inside his office toilet, said to be kickbacks from municipal contractors, as I reported in The French Betrayal of America).
Because of that judicial sword of Damocles, Chirac long made his rivals believe he would run for a third term next year, hoping, perhaps, to die in office rather than go to jail.
Under a deal he cut with the then-head of the French constitutional court, the socialist Roland Dumas, the court agreed not to allow prosecution against a sitting president, even for crimes committed before he took office. In exchange, Chirac would have the Justice Ministry drop an investigation of Dumas for taking bribes in the Taiwan frigates scandal (more on that, below).
There’s an old cliché in France. Political scandals in the United States are all about sex, whereas in France they are all about money.
In America, the French note, it’s scandalous for a politician to have sex with anyone other than his/her lawfully-wedded spouse; whereas in France, it’s considered scandalous for a man who has climbed to the pinnacles of power not to also climb into bed with his mistress. (The French become a bit more prudish when the cuckhold is the man, but let’s leave that for another day).
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Sorry, it's about money. As an American, I'm not interested unless it's about sex.
ROFL. We should have just made France a colony when we took it back for the frogs the second time.
No, why should we have to deal with it. We should have returned it to it's historical foster parents, the Brits. They ran most of it when Churchill's ancestor the 1st Duke of Marlborough was around.
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