One thing lost in the hoo-ha over Obama's proposals for Afghanistan is that they aren't what some people think they are.  

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy's Margaret Talev, he said the following:

I'm not here to lay out a comprehensive military strategy. That's the job of our commanders on the ground. I can tell you what our strategic goals should be. They should be relatively modest. We shouldn't want to take over the country. We should want to get out of there as quickly as we can and help the Afghans govern themselves and provide for their own security.

More past the jump.

Continuing to play the victim at the hands of the American media that love him, on Friday John McCain bashed both Barack Obama and the press.  Appropriating Lance Armstrong's cancer awareness event in Columbus, McCain slammed the "throng of adoring fans" who greeted Obama in Paris.  Sadly for McCain, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's glowing reception of Obama probably has less to do with media bias than with the insults McCain hurled at France in the run-up to the Iraq war.

The more I actually listen to Barack Obama the more he sounds just like GW Bush. Just today I read where he said in France that Iran needs to accept the EU restrictions on their nuclear program. his changed changes on Israel have already been rationalized and accepted by his following. I suppose now Democrats are all for continuing to threaten Iran over the Nuke issue. Actually as a cynic I get no satisfaction out of being able to see all this coming many months ago. Obama's call to Europe, from Germany, to unite in the War on Terror instead of uniting in an effort to reach out and communicate and understand why things are this way is also typical of the Neo Globalist, and now Barack Obama.

With Barack Obama's world tour getting unbelievable press attention (I mean, how could they not be following John McCain's Sausage Haus visit?), and the French media's absolute obsession with Nicholas Sarkozy, I suppose this was just bound to happen. We've only seen a ten second clip of the two of them together, played over and over again on the talking heads news networks, and now we know why.

If only we were in Paris to see this: Obama, Sarkozy Melt Paparazzi

A twelve second video tape, obtained by each of the major broadcast news networks, was the only footage of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and French President Nicholas Sarkozy that survived the all-powerful ray of heat light that charged across the countryside when the two leaders met on the steps of the French Presidential Palace on Friday.

I just saw the last half of the press conference of Obama and Sarkozy.

I am now watching France24.com.  

The CNN translation from French to English was terrible, so I went directly to the French emission.  (Sarkozy was agreeing with Obama how important Afghanistan is and was giving the example of a woman whose fingers were cut off because she used nail polish, if my French caught it right.  This was a violation of the rights of all humans.  The translator could not follow.  Not good, so I watched the French questions and answers without translation.)

Sarkozy clearly is very, very comfortable with Obama and the NPR reporter asked him if he was endorsing Obama.  Of course, Sarkozy said no.

Some thoughts below.

I love that Sako guy. When he was elected president of France planing to expel immigrants, I was really scared of him. But with each day pass, I get to love him.... oh, he just endorsed Obama secretly...

The constant theme last night in the coverage of the Berlin speech that Obama delivered was the refrain: "We'll see what the voters think"....   GREAT News, VOTERS LOVED IT!

Over half of Americans (55%) rate Barack Obama’s historic speech in Berlin yesterday good or excellent, and the Democratic presidential candidate is experiencing a modest bounce over John McCain nationally in the latest Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Even nearly a third of Republicans (32%) give the speech good or excellent marks, but Democrats are far more enthusiastic, with 75% feeling that way. However, 39% of Republicans rate the speech Poor versus only five percent (5%) of Democrats. Forty-seven percent (47%) of unaffiliated voters say the speech was good or excellent, while 16% characterize it as Poor.

Suck on that David Brooks!!!  This is EXACTLY what McCain feared....   Let the new Meme be born...

OBAMA HAS CROSSED THE C-N-C THRESHOLD

On Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will cap his European tour with an address in Berlin to an audience whose numbers may approach one million.  But while the media will focus on Obama's call to strengthen America's trans-Atlantic alliance with France and Germany, lost no doubt will be John McCain's essential role in undermining it.  As it turns out, back in 2003 John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with the Berlin-bashers and Paris-hating purveyors of "freedom fries" and "old Europe."

The G8 used to be criticized as an evil capitalist group of powerful countries that determines world politics and economics without legitimacy like the UN. There has not been much of such criticism at this year's summit in Japan.

I have to admit that we have been very geeky about this whole thing.

Mrs. Lupin and I used to watch the Tour on TV when we lived in L.A.. Now, here we are, and this year, the Tour came right through our little village in the South of France!

It was obvious from looking at the schedule that was printed in the local rag that we’d have to look fast and not blink, otherwise we would miss it, but part of seeing the Tour is the experience of being there as much as seeing the racers.

[More under fold]

Self alluded last week that the next SNLC would cover a movie from a country with its own national holiday just after ours.  So, the holiday is Bastille Day, the country is France (but of course), and the movie is OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d'espions (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies).  It's based on the espionage adventures of one Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a.k.a. Agent 117.  Originally created by Jean Bruce, this guy is basically a French James Bond, although the first OSS 117 novel, Tu parles d'une ingénue (Ici OSS 117), dates from 1949, four years before Fleming's Casino Royale.

What the filmmakers did here, however, was to make a spoof rather than a regular Bond-like action film, more à la Maxwell Smart & Inspector Clouseau.  Like Military Intelligence and You!, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies alludes, not subtly, to current events.  So....

In yet another attempt to benefit from Obama's star power McCain has suggested he accompany Obama to Europe and hold a town hall meeting under the The Brandenburg Gate...

The new ABC/WaPo poll has the talking heads jabbering about people being unsure as to whether Obama is ready to be Commander in Chief. There is good reason for their concern. After all, until recently he wore a flag pin only intermittently, and he's not as good at answering the phone as Hillary at three in the morning (so we've been told). Plus, he fist bumps his wife.

So, Obama is going to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and a few other places. Most important of all, he is going to France. This will give him the opportunity to pass one of the vital tests of the American president: can he piss off the French?

By KikiBird from EyesOnObama:

Yesterday was Bastille Day, the French equivalent of Independence Day. Having just gotten back from Paris, I can say that Parisians would storm the Bastille all over again if it would get Obama elected.

It is midnight in Paris as this is published. For the 219th year in a row, French men and women commemorate some horribly necessary bloodshed with a song.

Despite taking a completely different path, the French Revolution consciously modelled itself on the American Revolution of the previous decade (just as the American colonists had formed their revolution on the example of the Glorious Revolution of three British generations beforehand, which was in turn an inversion of the Parliamentary Revolution of two further generations back.)

To help us moderns grasp some of the vigor of the French movement at that point in history -- where the Old World deliberately admired and imitated the New -- here is a loose, unofficial, freehand English translation of the Marseillaise. (It gets its name from the fact that it was first introduced into Paris by people from Marseille singing it as they marched.)

I found this as a fresh angle on the decades-long futile attempt to reconcile Israelis and Arabs.  Incorporating both parties into a greater transnational organization for the betterment of both and all others.

Just as the United Nations accomplished its mission by preventing a third world war and the European Union has erased borders between once warring nations, a Med Union could sew Arab/Israeli relations.

This new angle is being pushed by France's president (a conservative free trader but European conservatives would be more aligned with US Democrats than Republicans, imo).

So this is my first diary. And I think I should probably quickly introduce myself before I go on with it. I am a 31-year-old French man, I live near Paris, I'm interested in politics, especially American politics, and I sort of have mastered English enough in order to read it and write it. So if there is anything confusing about what follows, oh well, pardon my French...

This diary will be about voting in France and about what it means to actually run a free election where the will of the citizens truly decides who is going to be the next president. I felt compelled to write it because I just saw the excellent film Free For All by John Wellington Ennis. You can watch the film for free here : Free For All Movie.

So I will start with a simple question :

Why are American presidential elections so fascinating for us, from here in France?