I’m feeling a bit dense this afternoon. I don’t understand this cartoon...would someone care to enlighten me.

The increasing whiteness of the flag indicates the propensity of the French to surrender. But, of course, if you have to explain it....

Plus it’s very environmentally aware. Ramirez should be able to recycle the drawing a dozen times.

If the "whiteness of the flag indicates the propensity of the French to surrender" then my question is how does this apply to the recent situation with the proposed jobs law? A large percentage of those demonstrating in the streets of France recently were...FRENCH people, as in, to be clear, French CITIZENS. They certainly didn’t give up or surrender, did they? It could be said that they actually WON, non? Perhaps the cartoon simply meant that the French GOVERNMENT surrendered to the will of its citizenry? Shocking! Appalling!

Or, knowing Ramirez, maybe it was simply his suggestion that France remove its non-white people.

Point taken, I suppose, except that what separates the statesman from the mere politician is that the former tends to cave in to the demands of mobs, while the former does what he or she thinks is right, and then faces the public on election day.

But has the Chirac government behaved any less courageously in this matter than the Bush administration did when it backed off on the Dubai Ports World deal?

To John’s point: D.oes it bode well for better immigration legislation here? No, and I did not like the Congressional proposal and am not sorry to see it fail. Ok, be set aside for now. We are not handling the issue very well.

However, as a former student protester of the Viet Nam War, no good thing comes of government taking the mob’s "concerns" into consideration. I wish they had ignored my youthful foolishness. The groups protesting are NEVER representative of majority opinion, which is why they are in the streets. Therefore, what is desired is rarely if ever in the national interest. How depressing to think that an era of public demonstrations is again at hand.

"The groups protesting are NEVER representative of majority opinion, which is why they are in the streets. Therefore, what is desired is rarely if ever in the national interest. How depressing to think that an era of public demonstrations is again at hand."

Such tidy, bulletproof logic! Yeah, no one should have ever listened to women or blacks when those "mobs" took to the streets seeking the right to vote and other such frivilous, excessive privileges. But I am confused, as both pro-choice/pro-abortion and anti-abortion/anti-choice groups have taken to the streets, frequently, in the last couple decades or so. I guess BOTH sides are wrong?

err...frivOlous, that is.

John, which one caves in and which one emulates Sheriff Andy Taylor? You attributed both of those behaviors to the statesman ("the former"), as far as I can tell.

Craig,
Oddly, I have been in the streets for both sides of the abortion question, at different times of my life. It was actually much more "mob-by" when I was out for the "pro-choice" side and more like a very tiresome picnic on the other. (You know, the kind where no one remembered to bring a baseball and bats) Nicer folks, on the pro-life side, though; less vitrio. Except that from young men driving by who said some pretty foul things. Maybe I was just forunate in my march-mates.

I do not see that it did either side any good protesting on the streets. The abortion issue was "won" in the courts, not in the political process. It sounds like change in that issue will be "won" in the courts, again. This is a pity in a democracy.

Rights are an issue of citizenship. Are you saying that immigrants, currently here illegally, have those rights simply by showing up? Those "privileges" you refer to, were granted to citizens through a political process, because the republic eventually decided that they were right. If the point is doing what is right, then the pressure of the street protester on the issue is not really relevant.

It tis appears that Sloth trumps individual initiative. Danke Prez Chirac. Harry Reid. Peolsi, Hillary, Schumer, etc, ad naseum must surely send you flowers.

John, which one caves in and which one emulates Sheriff Andy Taylor? You attributed both of those behaviors to the statesman ("the former"), as far as I can tell.

You’re right, Student (mind if I call you "Stu" for short?), but I think you know which is which.

But has the Chirac government behaved any less courageously in this matter than the Bush administration did when it backed off on the Dubai Ports World deal? Comment 5 by John Moser

Uh, wasn’t it DPW that backed off? Wasn’t it Bush’s refusal to back off that got him in trouble with his base? Not just there, but in his refusal to back off on the Harriet Meiers nomination? Bush has his faults (here’s your opening Bush haters). We all do. I don’t think one of his faults is that he’s too much like a jock sheer rock.

No, the President wasn’t going to back off of the ports deal.

DPW gave him the out he needed, which he did not want, publicly , that is.