[Mb-civic] OP-ED COLUMNIST Condi's French Twist By MAUREEN DOWD

[Michael Butler]

 The New York Times
February 10, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Condi's French Twist
By MAUREEN DOWD

Flush with endorsing license plates discouraging conjugal license - entwined
gold rings with the message "Traditional Marriage" - the Virginia House of
Delegates is pulling up the fabric of society again.

Literally, this time.

The delegates have passed a bill authorizing a $50 fine for any Virginians -
from randy Desperate Housewives to droopy chic teenagers - who wear pants
that ride so low that their underwear shows "in a lewd or indecent manner."

Given that several generations now have unsuccessfully tried to meddle in
the matter of teens' jeans, you would think lawmakers would know it is the
ultimate futility. But the bill's sponsor, Delegate Algie Howell Jr., a
67-year-old Democrat and barbershop owner from Norfolk, told The
Virginian-Pilot that he's got high, or rather low, hopes: "I think if
there's a law saying you can't walk down the street with 8 to 10 inches of
your undergarments showing, at least some of them might stop doing it."

This guy should be on the Bush team. Controlling what does not need to be
controlled is its specialty.

Condoleezza Rice plays hardball with foes and allies around the world. But
she's afraid of a few French schoolkids?

Keith Richburg reported in The Washington Post that the Bushies ensured that
Condi's appearance at the elite Institute of Political Sciences was more
sheep pen than lion's den. "Only a handful of the school's 5,500 students
were allowed near the auditorium where Rice spoke," he wrote, "and the
initial questions were vetted in advance by the school and the State
Department."

The article said Benjamin Barnier, the son of Foreign Minister Michel
Barnier, asked the first question, about the possibility of a theocratic
government in Iraq. But the real question he wanted to ask was vetoed after
he submitted it to the school on Monday. It was: "George Bush is not
particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East.
Can you do something to change that?"

Surely, the "princess warrior" and "Madame Hawk," as she has been dubbed in
France, could have handled that one.

But Bush officials prefer to write the script, or "create their own
reality," as one Bushie put it, whenever they can. Besides the W.M.D. scare,
there was the Kabuki "Ask President Bush" campaign sessions where voters had
to take written pledges of support before they were allowed in, and the
micromanaged town hall debates, where Bush strategists would not allow truly
undecided voters to ask W. questions. And don't forget the administration's
payments to conservative "journalists" to sell programs they would have
promoted anyway.

The administration is obsessed with controlling the script in ways it
doesn't need to, while it drops the ball on controlling the script in ways
it should. With the occupation plan in Iraq and the approach to Iran and
North Korea, the Bush team often seems to be improvising.

The smug French, who have been riveted by what they regard as American
self-delusion, were also riveted by Condi's lèse-majesté seduction in pumps
and pearls. Her message boiled down to a silky version of: "Now that we've
blown you off and ignored you, we're going to give you an opportunity to
admit we were right all along and join us on the ramparts to crush Islamic
fundamentalism."

As Elaine Sciolino wrote in The Times, the new secretary of state sent a
frisson through the American ambassador's residence yesterday at breakfast
with six French intellectuals when she referred to Iran as a "totalitarian
state," rather than an "authoritarian" one - since totalitarian is a term
ordinarily reserved for violent regimes like Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet
Union.

"It was scary," said one guest, François Heisbourg, and it inflamed French
fears that the U.S. is eyeing regime change in Iran next.

Of course, the French and other Europeans will remain skeptical of Ms.
Rice's talk of high ideals, liberty and help for women in the Middle East as
long as the U.S. remains inconsistent. In our ally Saudi Arabia's first
nationwide elections for municipal councils today, women have been banned
from voting or running.

The Saudis, who obviously picked up a few tips from the Bushies about how to
suppress the vote, claimed that they didn't have enough voting booths for
women.

But the Saudi columnist Badriyah al-Bisher was quoted by The A.P. as saying
that the elections were reminiscent of the time the first President George
Bush did not step in when Saudi women made a spirited effort to drive, after
female American soldiers arrived for Desert Shield. The women drivers were
slapped down, insulted and ostracized for the next decade.

"We've been dumped in the back seat again," she said, "and only a man is
allowed to drive us."

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