Is our president French?

Friday, August 18, 2006

Le Plan: The White House has been quick to laugh off any deeper meaning behind President Bush's strange decision to spend his vacation reading Albert Camus' The Stranger. If John Dickerson and Maureen Dowd go after him again, Tony Snow may have to pretend that there was a mix-up between Bush and his new neighbor Cindy Sheehan at the Crawford Public Library.

Like most men, my first reaction was that Laura Bush must have finally convinced her husband to join a book group. But in the spirit of Emily Bazelon, I've tried to remember the advice educators give parents about their children's summer book list: No matter what they choose, just be glad they're reading.

To be honest, I was a little hurt that the president wasn't reading The Plan, the new book that Rahm Emanuel and I have just written and will be plugging shamelessly all fall. We're no Camus. But even though Bush might not enjoy all the fun we have at his expense, the book is full of ideas about how to fix the mess he has made.

The French Connection: Unlike Bush, Dickerson, and Dowd, I could never stick with Camus long enough to find a deeper meaning that might explain the president's interest. Like the Bush we thought we knew, I figured it was enough to recall that the author's full name was Albert Camus, not Bullwinkle K. Moose.

But before Paul Begala dashes off a quickie book called Is Our Presidents Reading?, let's agree that the literary implications of Bush's choice are beside the point. The discovery of Bush's secret passion for Camus raises a more disturbing question: Is our president French?

L'Affaire Camus is the last straw in the Frenchification of American politics. Last week, we uncovered circumstantial evidence of Bush's hidden interest in the Tour de France. In the meantime, the Bush administration encouraged France to take the lead in negotiating the cease-fire in Lebanon. A few weeks ago, the House of Representatives—the supposed Bastille of Francophobia—dropped "freedom fries" and went back to french fries. All year long, House members have shown an inexplicable, French-like affection for a troubled colleague named Jerry Lewis. It's only a matter of time before the House cafeteria starts serving Perrier and pommes frites, and Republicans stop pronouncing the final "t" when they refer to Speaker Hastert.

In retrospect, we should have seen the tell-tale signs of Frenchness all along: Bush's Parisian refusal to work in August, Cheney's snooty contempt for American culture, Condi's flair for haute couture, Bolten's Marie-Antoinettish tax cuts, and Rumsfeld's penchant for les head-butts. All this time, we've mistaken W for the Peter Sellers in Being There, when in every aspect of his job, Bush is actually Inspector Clouseau.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternity: Naturellement, the White House kept its latent Gaullist tendencies under wraps until a second term. Karl Rove, a Norwegian holdout in a bastion of Franks, knows he can't sell his party down on the farm after they've gone Paris.

The incessant bickering with France over Iraq, as well as the smear campaign to dub John Kerry a Francophile, were all just another cover-up from an administration desperate to disguise its true affections. Bush's stubborn, disastrous effort to show tout le monde that we don't care what they think is really an ill-informed Texan's attempt to affect every tired French stereotype—Lyndon Johnson imitating Charles de Gaulle.