Best Self-Defeating Argument Ever: Molly Ivins, eager to score points against the Hated Bush Junta®, decided to take France's side in the current fuss. Her alleged beef: accusations of cowardice against the French are Not Fair, because they lost 100,000 men surrendering to fighting the advancing German forces during WW2. In her zeal to show how Kulcha'ed she is by bragging about her knowledge of French history, she forgot another fact that makes her look like the dumb hick she often tries to pretend to be. Ross Douthat reminds her:
If you want to know what a country that really wanted "to stop Adolf Hitler" might have done, consider Russia, which suffered a far greater defeat in the opening months of Operation Barbarossa, saw its front-line armies smashed to kindling and thousands of square miles of territory overrun, was far more out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and out-tanked than the well-armed French -- and then kept fighting, until Hitler was beaten and 6,115,000 Russians were dead. That's what it really means to "stand and fight."
I used to think Ivins was amusing back in the day, but lately she has given me the same feeling so many other pundits and celebs do: they have become bitter and mean, and they have sore loser written all over them. People will root for the underdog, and help a legitimate victim of circumstances, but no one likes a loser.
Posted by Andrea Harris at February 22, 2003 12:37 AMI think France made such a psychological investment in the Maginot Line, that when the Germans just drove past it, they packed it up. It doesn't account for their quick capitulation, but I think it had a factor.
"Sir, the Germans broke through the Maginot Line!"
"Impossible! It's the most fortified defensive line on Earth! How could it be?"
"Our guns don't point backwards!"
"Shit. I hear London calling."
Posted by: Paul at February 22, 2003 at 02:04 AMIvins asks if we've "ever heard of the Foriegn Legion". Sure I have, Molly. They're good troops, by all accounts. Of course, they do have the slight advantage of not actually being, you know, French.
France is at its miltary best when faced with a dangerous foe like Greenpeace.
Posted by: Niccolo Machiavelli at February 22, 2003 at 02:19 PM"Foreign", dammit, "foreign". What is it about hitting the submit button that makes a glaring typo jump out at you? It's sort of like that feeling you get when your car door slams and you suddenly realize that your keys are still inside.
Posted by: Niccolo Machiavelli at February 22, 2003 at 02:22 PMIf Molly didn't exist, we'd have to create her because she is just so easy to fisk. I have a policy to do it no more than once a month lest brain rot occur. She and Ann Richards are just a couple of dried up old crones whose only remaining reason for living is bashing Bush.
Posted by: Denny Wilson at February 22, 2003 at 05:57 PMRemember Molly, was just out of Smith, when she spent a year at the Sorbonne, in the mid 60s, in
the time right before the unelected President
DeGaulle, who came to power in a military coup
in 1958, broke his solemn promise to the pied
noirs, and sold out the people of the Algeria,
to a pro-Arab militant, ex-Nazi & Nasser backed
terrorist group. and ultimately defeated a pro-
American, pro Israeli element (Gen Massu, was at
Suez in 1956, when we pulled the carpet from him.
the Brits and the Israeli's against a predecessor
to Saddamm, the above mentioned Nasser,) who rewarded this moderate step, by supporting the
coup, that set Iraq on the path, it has followed
on to today, and developed his own WMD of mass
destruction program)DeGaulle, as we found out in
Topaz, was advised by an entire Soviet spy ring,
Of course, Molly would pick him as his hero,
PS; the fact, that Degaulle sent his expedition
back to Indochina, with Marshall Plan and other
aide, partially delivered by Oliver Stone's father, is obviously ignored
Narciso79,
I yield to no one in disgust at the current French treachery, but citing a novel ("Topaz" by Leon Uris) as evidence of history is not really in the best form. I know it is supposed to be based on an actual spy case but it is still a shaky foundation.
GRRRR!!! This is the fourth or fifth thing I've read about that washed-up Ivins. I cut my teeth on her op-eds, and I thought it was bullshit when I was 13. How she's managed to make it another 30 years re-running the same ten columns is a testament to the clueless inattentiveness of her editors, and to the fact that there's a sucker born every minute.
She was funny for about 22 minutes back in 1988. Not before, and not since. GRRRRR!
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at February 22, 2003 at 09:35 PMOne of the reasons for the survival of the USSR in the face of Nazi attack, while France capitulated, was that there was a lot more Russia to fall back into than there was France. The Germans reached so far into Russia that they would have driven to the Atlantic Ocean to get that far in France.
The other main reasons were the gallantry of the Russians and others, the savagry of the Communist government holding the country to the task, the abundance of US support (especially in vehicles and food), and the absolute idiocy of the Nazis in waging their evil race war there instead of coming as liberators from the Commies. That last one was the most crucial mistake of the war.
Posted by: Michael Lonie at February 22, 2003 at 09:35 PM