Things I Know I Know

I've been working on an essay about the abuse of the French for their stand on the war with Iraq. But, look, Joe Conason says, in a piece for the New York Observer, what I was going to say:

The French are derided as cowards by people like Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who somehow escaped the Vietnam draft. The French are accused of coveting Iraqi oil contracts, as if our insatiable need for petroleum had never influenced American policy in the Middle East. The French are accused of ingratitude, although most Americans remain ignorant of the critical role they played in our own revolution. In my hometown, there was an elementary school named for the Count de Rochambeau, yet nobody bothered to teach the children there about his gallant service to George Washington.

And,

Whatever insults are hurled at France, its views are shared by most Europeans, including the people of Britain, as well as by the majority of nations on the Security Council, not to mention many American military leaders and quite a few ordinary Americans. Vilifying the French doesn’t invalidate that position—and throwing nasty tantrums only reduces American prestige, in an era when we need allies as much as they need us.