18-02-2003 07:08									#1
	Wimps, weasels and monkeys Put an end to popups!

Blatantly stolen from CGN:

quote: Dissenters in Europe become the first victims - of a war of words Gary Younge in New York and Jon Henley in Paris Tuesday February 11, 2003 The Guardian The "petulant prima donna of realpolitik" is leading the "axis of weasels", in "a chorus of cowards". It is an unholy alliance of "wimps" and ingrates which includes one country that is little more than a "mini-me minion", another that is in league with Cuba and Libya, with a bunch of "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" at the helm. Welcome to Europe, as viewed through the eyes of American commentators and newspapers yesterday, as Euro-bashing, and particularly anti-French sentiment, reached new heights. In a barrage of insults and invective which ranged from the basest tabloid rants to the loftiest columnists on the most respected newspapers, European-led resistance to America's war plans in Iraq was portrayed not as a diplomatic position to be negotiated as a genetic weakness in the European mindset which makes them reluctant to fight wars and incapable of winning them. The front page of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post yesterday shows the graves of Normandy with the headline: "They died for France but France has forgotten." "Where are the French now, as Americans prepare to put their soldiers on the line to fight today's Hitler, Saddam Hussein?" asks the pugnacious columnist Steve Dunleavy. "Talking appeasement. Wimping out. How can they have forgotten?" A cartoon in the same paper shows an ostrich with its head in the sand below the words: "The national bird of France." If such language is proving a headache for the diplomats, then spare a thought for the French translators, who have struggled for words to convey the full force of the venom. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" - a phrase coined by Bart Simpson but made acceptable in official diplomatic channels around the globe by Jonah Goldberg, a columnist for the rightwing weekly National Review (according to Goldberg) - was finally rendered: " Primates capitulards et toujours en quête de fromages ". And the New York Post's "axis of weasel" lost much of its venom when translated as a limp " axe de faux jetons " (literally, "axis of devious characters"). American wrath has been reserved for those nations which oppose their leadership, particularly following the decision to oppose shifting Nato resources to Turkey. "Three countries - France, Germany and their mini-me minion, Belgium - have moved from opposition to US policy toward Iraq into formal, and consequential obstructionism," argued the Wall Street Journal in an editorial yesterday. "If there is a war [the Turks] will face the danger of direct attack that is not feared in the chocolate shops of Brussels." The front page of the National Review blares "Putsch" with a sub-headline: "How to defeat the Franco-German power grab." While the jibes may be puerile, the possibility that the Bush administration and commercial outlets might follow them up with punitive measures has struck some as pernicious. An ad, due to come out soon, shows three German-made cars, including an Audi and a BMW, driving towards the camera with a voice saying: "Do you really want to buy a German car?" If there has been any European country that has attracted more contempt than others, it is France. In the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Hitchens described Jacques Chirac as "a positive monster of conceit _ the abject procurer for Saddam ... the rat that tried to roar". In the Washington Post, George Will opined that the "oily" foreign affairs minister, Dominique de Villepin, had launched France into "an exercise for which France has often refined its savoir-faire since 1870, which is to say retreat - this time into incoherence". And in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman argued that France should be removed from the security council and be replaced with India: "India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it's become silly." The Wall Street Journal editor, Max Boot, argues: "France has been in decline since, oh, about 1815, and it isn't happy about it." What particularly galls the Gauls is that their rightful place in the world has been usurped by the gauche Americans." At its ugliest, the transatlantic bile is becoming increasingly personal. When France Inter radio's correspondent in Washington, Laurence Simon, started to explain her government's position to Fox News (owned by Murdoch) she was interrupted by the presenter. "With friends like you, who needs enemies," she was told as she was taken off air. The following was printed the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Thursday February 13 2002 The description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was not coined by Bart Simpson. It comes from the Simpsons character Groundskeeper Willie, the Scottish immigrant who takes care of custodial matters at the elementary school.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4603098,00.html

	18-02-2003 07:14									#2
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Here I am.

A cheese-eating surrender monkey
A weasel
An avid supporter of Saddam
A power grabbing traitor
An ungrateful spoiled brat of America's generosity

When you throw tomatoes at me, please make sure they're very rotten. I don't deserve anything better.

	18-02-2003 07:14									#3
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Yeah but you're Americans

	18-02-2003 07:16									#4
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Seriously though. I know it is the guardian, but please see the point. The most serious American media is flooding with xenophic slur and mindless hatemongering. I've never read such insults on Americans in any French newspaper in my lifetime, while we're remored to be rabidly anti-americans.

Maybe there is something wrong with all the French-bahsing your media is doing, don't you think ?

Edit : a simple example. Richard Perle was today the guest of a French TV-show oriented towards political analisys. While the show was clearly oriented against the war, Perle has been able to talk at length on the necessities to go to war against Iraq, and how useless the protests were. He didn't got interrupted nor fired from the show.
The only pro-war French politician (Alain Madelin) has been the guest of another show, more oriented towards entertainment. While the tension was clear between Madelin and the showleader, he was approx. able to make his point without being insulted. He left the stage after having done his time, not before.

	18-02-2003 07:20									#5
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If the American Media like you, you know you have done something wrong.

	18-02-2003 07:32									#6
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How is this new? Haven't the Europeans long declared us as drunk, uneducated, racist, cowboy warmongers with too many guns?

	18-02-2003 07:33									#7
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Yeah but we're right.

	18-02-2003 07:35									#8
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Shi :
The serious media only kept the "too many guns" part. By "serious media", I mean nearly all the dailies, and TV news. I wonder if the German Bild (hte crappiest newspaper I got to read) ever depicted Americans as a whole like the Wall Street Journal does to the French ; I doubt it.

	18-02-2003 07:36									#9
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No paiktis22, just deluded and insignificant

	18-02-2003 07:43									#10
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Does that mean you'll not be buying feta anymore?

	18-02-2003 07:46									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Shi : The serious media only kept the "too many guns" part. By "serious media", I mean nearly all the dailies, and TV news. I wonder if the German Bild (hte crappiest newspaper I got to read) ever depicted Americans as a whole like the Wall Street Journal does to the French ; I doubt it.

I for one would prefer our media to be much more like the Wall Street Journal in that respect.

Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

	18-02-2003 07:51									#12
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I will never stop buying feta

	18-02-2003 07:56									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Shi : I wonder if the German Bild (hte crappiest newspaper I got to read) ever depicted Americans as a whole like the Wall Street Journal does to the French ; I doubt it.

I don't read the Bild, so I can't tell for sure...but I don't think they'd do that...the german media is very carefull about not getting into anti-americanist argumentation.

what I don't understand is: why are so many americans not willing to accept that others have different opinions? with all this euro-bashing in the media they seem to heavily try to prove all the prejudice against them are true...but I'm still not fully convinced yet

	18-02-2003 08:00									#14
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They are like little children who are denyied their toy

	18-02-2003 08:04									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Mazarin with all this euro-bashing in the media they seem to heavily try to prove all the prejudice against them are true...but I'm still not fully convinced yet

I respect scepticism; but you overdo it.

	18-02-2003 08:34									#16
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Hey, that's bullshit.

Groundskeeper Willie coined "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys," not Bart Simpson.

	18-02-2003 08:34									#17
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I'm surprised by the lack of interest from the Americans on this issue : first post from DD, an answer from Shi, an other from cia and that's it.

Do you Yanks really think it's all right or unimportant ?

Edit : gah, Boris made my point void the very minute I posted

	18-02-2003 08:36									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Groundskeeper Willie coined "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys," not Bart Simpson.

I posted that correction.

	18-02-2003 08:36									#19
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I view it with the same mindless rhetoric I see from the "unbiased" Euro news sources. The American media is too uneducated to sugar coat it as well as their European counterparts.

	18-02-2003 08:40									#20
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quote: Originally posted by cia I view it with the same mindless rhetoric I see from the "unbiased" Euro news sources. The American media is too uneducated to sugar coat it as well as their European counterparts.

would you mind giving some examples for the "european counterpart"?

	18-02-2003 08:42									#21
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Cia : I think you're right. But at least, our media doesn't spread xenophobic slur to become common knowledge. The sugar coating prevents the population to use these articles as insults material.

	18-02-2003 08:45									#22
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I don't know what is going on in your media Spiffor, the only European news source I ever cheeck is bbc.co.uk, so I don't know how your press is portraying us. But for whatever your media is doing, it seems from at least Europeans online you people have a whole slew of nasty stereotypes about us.

	18-02-2003 08:49									#23
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Give me a little time on that one. But let me generalize it by saying that I notice that the Europeans have a preconceived notion about how a story should conclude, which is the same as Americans. i.e. Fact: A vehicle hit a pedestrian yesterday in a crosswalk.
Spin: A fuel-guzzling SUV careened into an innocent person with complete disregard.
Both say the same thing but on places blame and paints a picture differently from the other.
This is especially true with politics. Instead of on news service digging up all the facts about something like Iraq, each one only finds stories which supports their preconceived notions. So I have to go to multiple biases sources to try to create a whole picture. Drives me nuts. Tellme the damn news without the comentary.

	18-02-2003 08:53									#24
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quote: Originally posted by cia Tellme the damn news without the comentary.

Not possible. There are too many facts, and a clever spin will always be hidden in the decision which one chooses not to mention.

	18-02-2003 08:56									#25
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cia, you're right about the fact that media change the information they should provide, in the US as well as in Europe...but I've never seen comments in the German media that would be comparable to the examples listed above.
The main problem I see is that the relationships between some EU-countries and the US (and even worse between EU-countries) might really suffer for several years -and this would do harm to all of us.

	18-02-2003 09:05									#26
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I think it is despicable what the US media is saying about France and Germany

	18-02-2003 09:05									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Mazarin The main problem I see is that the relationships between some EU-countries and the US (and even worse between EU-countries) might really suffer for several years -and this would do harm to all of us.

In Chinese, problem = chance.

I look forward to the day when NATO is finally falling apart. George Bush is bringing that day closer.

All Hail George Bush!

	18-02-2003 10:08									#28
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Actually, European leaders weary of war may be more intelligent in the current global situation right now than our American leaders who are on a crazed warpath.

Diplomatic European leaders sound more intelligent than war-whooping American leaders.

	18-02-2003 10:26									#29
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I do not view caution as a substitute for or a sign of intelligence. Why not just wait and sell Hussein the stuff he needs for nukes so when he has them we can say we were right in not doing anything because he might nuke us. Worked great in North Korea

	18-02-2003 10:31									#30
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Spiffor,

I'm very disturbed by this. Especially about French people being treated rudely here. I think you French have been the butt of jokes here in the past. It doesn't mean that we hated French people. Sadly, I think things might be changing now. Americans are very pissed off about these terrorist attacks, and now it looks like the whole world is turning against us. Chirac is about as popular in this country as OBL. I think at this point he seems about as big as an enemy as OBL. I think there is long term damage to the Franco-American relationship going on right now.