Strauss-Kahnikov (New Yorker -- gossip from his friends and acquaintances)

self-entitlement is pathological. I hope he wears nothing but orange until he dies.

I know of a number of people like that, but none who has risen so far, nor to my knowledge, who has done something this vile.

It seems like the accused has the best legal team money can buy. It's not clear to me why Whitney thinks he won't get a fair trial.

that used to be a consideration. and newspapers used to get sued for hanging people before trial.

but those niceties no longer matter, apparently.

theories will loom large. I'm waiting for his side of the story and the man has the resources to fight for his life.

from your Whitney essay


I remembered Geitner promoting the same thing, and sure enough in the Telegraph article Whitney quotes it says the US supports the IMF's idea.



Now look at Whitney's conclusion above. Like Saddam and Gaddafi? Whitney is just being silly.

I mean does anyone seriously believe such a policy change could take place without US agreement? Where would the money come from?

I don't understand why Whitney is supporting Strauss-Kahn so vigorously to the point of printing nonsense.

The piece begins at a dinner party in paris, where supposedly all the guests are talking about dsk, and they are all in agreement (especially those who "knew him best") that he was an incessant uncontrollable groper.

None of the people at this dinner party are named or quoted, however. Surely if so many of DSK's friends feel this way, at least one would be willing to say so on the record?

Apparently not, because the writer next quotes the "philosopher" Pascal Bruckner (at a cafe "earlier in the day"): “He wasn’t a womanizer—he was sick.”

There's no connection between this quote and the supposed dinner party later in the day. Bruckner is never mentioned as a guest at the party & is not quoted as saying anything at the party, though the writer says "Everyone at the dinner party agreed, and they, too, spoke of Strauss-Kahn in the past tense" in order to introduce a specious connection in the reader's mind.


Who is Bruckner? Here's a sample of his "philosophy":

http://www.signandsight.com/service/2123.html

Bruckner's "philosophy" is very similar to the Heritage Foundation's "philosophy," i.e. he's a neo-con & a supporter of Sarkozy. To call him a philosopher is a kind of joke. He's a polemicist & propagandist.

Among essays, La tentation de l'innocence (Temptation of innocence) (Prix Médicis in 1995) and, famously, Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc (The Cry of the White Man), an attack against narcissistic and destructive policies in the interest for the Third World, and more recently 'La tyrannie de la pénitence' (2006), an essay on the West's endless self-criticism.

He is an active supporter of the US cause and the invasion of Iraq, signing letters and petitions in favor of Donald Rumsfeld, along with Romain Goupil and André Glucksmann <1>. Bruckner supported the leader of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, Nicolas Sarkozy, during the campaign of the 2007 presidential election, claiming that the French Left now incarnated "conservatism" and that Sarkozy was the true heir of May '68.

http://translate.dc.gov/ma/enwiki/en/Pascal_Bruckner.


This "philosopher" is a member of this think-tank:

Cercle de l'Oratoire:

A French think tank created a short time after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Since 2006, it edits a journal, Le Meilleur des mondes.... This journal has been described by some in the French media as the "Voice of America" or as a gathering point of French neoconservatives (néo-conservateurs à la française). The journal, however, rejects these labels, describing itself as "anti-totalitarian". It considers radical Islam as a "real danger", and claims that "there has never been so much anti-Jewish propaganda."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cercle_de_l'Oratoire


Returning to the New Yorker piece, the writer next quotes an anonymous aide at the French Foreign Ministry saying the perp walk is savage, but maybe DSK did it, DSK is like a character out of Dostoevsky.

Then we have Bruckner again, saying DSK has “the face of a libertine” and “a bulldozer.” Bruckner says DSK's "passion was sex, much more than power,” and Bruckner has many women Socialist Party friends who've told Bruckner about him and he thinks they should have encouraged DSK to seek psychiatric help.

Then we return to the dinner party where the anonymous guests are now speaking about “wife-swapping Freemasons” & wives who are complicit in "pathology". An anonymous female guest is quoted as saying: “I’m beginning to think all the pictures of Strauss-Kahn in custody were a good thing—maybe they’ll put some fear into men.”

Then we have a quote from Dominique de Villepin, the Gaullist former Prime Minister, (right-winger but Sarkozy opponent), who says of the Socialists: “While they say, ‘We feel betrayed,’ others would say, ‘But you knew and you didn’t say anything.’ ”

Finally, at the very end, we have one actual friend/associate of DSK's quoted on the record:

“I think the best service I can give him is not to speak, not to hear, not to listen, as a kind of moment of mourning."

Which the writer alleges says "a lot," but which in fact says nothing absent the context in which it was said -- other than that Jacque Attali prefers not to speak about or hear about the DSK matter & feels he is "mourning". Why he mourns, why he doesn't want to hear or speak, we can only speculate. But given the context within the essay, we will *assume*.

So we have a hit piece which alleges that DSK's close friends/associates believe he's guilty & are treating him as basically dead ("past tense").

The only person willing to go on the record & say this directly, however, is not a friend or associate, but a Sarkozy supporter & a neo-con think tanker & propagandist.

Very skillful piece. The neo-con Bruckner's quotes are the backbone of the piece, with a bunch of anonymous/innocuous stuff draped over it to create the desired impression.

The writer Philip Gourevitch has a record, too, which includes white-washing Paul Kagame:

http://www.cjr.org/feature/one_mans_rwanda.php

or worse:

http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-52Depopulation%20As%20Policy.htm

It's very interesting he chose Bruckner as his #1 "source". That Gourevitch has to use a neo-con Sarkozy supporter as his primary source for a story which is supposed to convince us that all DSK's friends/associates have deserted him actually actually tends to lend credence to the reverse.

take down the great man.


:sarcasm:

We admire your persistence, Sisyphus.

"lincoln", can't find anyone except a neo-con propagandist in a US-affiliated think tank to quote for the dirty in his hit piece, but i'm sisyphus.

just roll over you on its way back down the hill.

Really. Do you honestly believe that this man is being set up? That he could not possibly commit a crime all by himself?

It's a common opening to get interest, taught in secondary school, starting in the middle of things so your readers get a sense of being there, anticipating the delicious gossip to come, then throwing in a flashback to give some background to the dinner discussion.

abandon him.

But the "flashback" quotes a neo-con who is neither part of the dinner party nor a friend of DSK. The "flashback" has nothing to do with the story, it's just a hack propagandist talking.

If Gourevitch had just written about the dinner party, he'd have a story about
"anonymous".

If he'd just written what was on the record, he'd have a story about a hack propagandist.

Which they all commented on.

At least that's how I understood the postcard.

I doubt he imagined his postcard/blog would receive such scrutiny.

at the party is entirely your own invention/inference.

the writer says nothing like that.

if he's going to quote a neocon sarko supporter in a story supposedly about dsk's friends, he must think most americans are completely uninformed about french culture & will eat any shit he dishes.

gourevitch has a history.

dinner party?

answer: he doesn't. that is *your* inference.

Do you not make logical inferences in your reading and conversation thousands of times day?

How do you suppose he knew the name of the restaurant and was able to produce a direct quotation if he wasn't there?

of items.

and that's what they are, inferences. the whole article is a tissue of such juxtapositions.

how did he know the name of the restaurant? i'm not sure why you think knowing the name of a parisian restaurant has any significance.

how was he able to produce a quote? heard it from the next table over, heard it second-hand, read it on a website, met bruckner for an interview for his hitpiece (not lunch), ...etc.

I don't know how you find the energy.

and I do admire your doggedness.

Heaven forbid someone close to him has an opinion! Why, they need to pass that stuff to you first so it can get vetted!

:eyes:

It is a shame that OJ Simpson, the Enron execs, Susan Smith, Jeff Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy didn't identify themselves as socialists...we missed out on some good Hannah Bell Defense Foundation posts.

"those closest" to dsk dissed him.

but not on the record.

the rest of the story is about a french neo-con dissing him.

not sure why you need to make it about me.

if you think this is good journalism, defend it.

so far, all the comments have made it about *me*.

no one has defended the article.

the reason for that, imo, is obvious.

If so, then I agree, because it's frickin' GOSSIP.

Your problem, which you've telegraphed by adding 'neo-con' to the argument, is that someone dared to
besmirch a SOCIALIST.

to the anonymous gossip he supposedly heard at a dinner party from dsk's close friends?

why did he feel the need to lard up the story with quotes from a french neocon who wasn't at the party & isn't a friend of dsk's, but is a friend of sarko?

i think the answer to that question is obvious as well.

and you may think dsk is a socialist, but i never have. he's a neo-lib.

i'm not defending dsk; i'm just wondering why the us press is so hot to convict him.

also wondering about some weird things about how it went down.

but please, keep making it about *me*, it's quite telling.

neocon attack dogs & anonymous quotes, anyway.