WonderfulPessimist.com

Now that communist Jacques Chirac is long gone and conservative Nicholas Sarkozy is in power in France, the French government is no longer treating US policy in Iraq like their personal toilet paper. In fact, Sarkozy’s government is offering to play a role in the War On Terror as, “an honest broker for peace” between the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, according to online reports.

Sarkozy’s French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, recently said, “I believe this is the moment. Everyone knows the Americans will not be able to get this country out of difficulty alone. I really believe that depending on what happens here it will change the world. This is about having an opinion and knowing what positive things one can do and what role France can play in this region,” he said, adding that Iraq was “expecting something” from France, according to a report in the International Herald-Tribune.

Both the right and left press in France seem to approve of the new direction, according to the IHT report.

“France owed it to itself to return to Iraq,” conservative newspaper Le Figaro said in an editorial Tuesday. “You can shut yourself off for four years in the conviction to have been right but that doesn’t increase the role our country plays on the international scene.”

Left-leaning Le Monde added, “It’s time to stop lecturing the Americans about their errors and start contributing to a solution.”

See? There are some leaders in France worth listening to. Now watch Michael Moore make newly anti-Chirac France the target of his next propaganda piece. That’d at least be more stimulating than Sicko, his essay on pulse oximeter devices or something… no one saw it, or remembers.

The liberal-stream media love to point out President Bush’s low poll numbers, but the story you’re not hearing from Katie, Charles and Brian is this: Congress’ approval rating is worse by far under Democratic leaders Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

In fact, it’s at an historic low, matched only one or two other times since polls have started being taken. Only 18 percent approve of the Dem-controlled Congress. Where are the headlines? Can’t allow ‘em. Might hurt the Dems. Can’t have that, can we, Katie, Charles and Brian?

How low is 18 percent? Well, in certain backwater areas of Louisiana, you can still dig up about 18 percent of the people who think Hitler had some good ideas. That’s how low 18 percent is.

It’s so low that if Congressional pay were based on job approval, Pelosi and Reid would be dining in the Old Congressional Boiler Room instead of at executive desks.

By comparison, Bush is soaring! His approval numbers stand at 32 percent! Lofty, ain’t it?

What this may actually reveal is what the real “extremist” factions stand at in terms of real numbers.

Only 18 percent of the hardest-core of hardcore Democrats can stomach the current Dem-controlled Congress. Only 32 percent can stomach Bush. The 50 percent in between can’t stand either side.

I believe it was Voltaire who put this situation into words best: Hell is other people.

The claws are out and the cats are warming up, even in the absence of Atlanta Falcon QB Michael Vick: Campaing 2008 is turning into a cat fight. In one corner, hailing from Illinois by way of Arkansas, Washington DC and New York, it’s Hillary “Maul His Balls” Rodham-Clinton.

And in the other corner, in the politically-correct-hued trunks, also from Chicago and, apparently, a kindergarten playground, it’s Michelle “He’s Black Enough for Me… Where It Counts!” Obama!

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!

Where’s Michael Buffer when you need him.

The cat fight between Hillary and Michelle heated up over the weekend when she took a shot Sen. Rodham by suggesting that until Hill can keep husband Bill’s “slick Willie” where it belongs, she ought not be running for President.

“One of the things, the important aspects of this race is role modeling what good families should look like,” Michelle Obama said at a Women for Obama event. “And my view is that if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House.”

Not a bad turn of phrase, not a bad life philosophy. But Michelle, be very careful. Your hubby’s a Democrat; you just might have to live those words down someday. Especially if the Clinton Collective has anything to say about it. Since you libs apparently read more books than us conservatives, you should be able to anticipate this for yourself!

Don’t forget: Resistance is futile!

According to the latest government and industry figures, foreclosures are up 9 percent between June and July of this year, and up over 93 percent since last year at this time. But before you start crying about the banking boogeymen, let’s keep in mind that, as consumers, some of the responsibility for this “can’t pay the mortgage” peril of Polly mess is from our own stupid mistakes.

Right now, the industry is rife with too-good-to-be-true financing deals, and now that these loans are starting to get some legs under then and the fine print starts smacking buyers upside their heads, the reason is clear: the loan terms WERE too good to be true.

Much of the housing boom of the past decade or so has hinged on out-of-control property revaluations - a hidden form of taxation - paired with “cheap credit” loans in which the average Wal-Mart employee can get approved for a $150,000 loan, only to find out he or she can’t keep up the expenses, bills and assessments made against such a spendy property. Easy credit means easy foreclosure.

Been there, learned the lesson, never gonna make the same mistake again. Keep in mind what our fathers all told us: nothing in life is free. Medicine like a strong dose of reality like that can cure much more than any nutritional supplements you can find.

Sometimes I think it would be better to just round up all the liberals into one big pay-per-view event, presented by Vince McMahon, and let the libs fight it out amongst themselves. What brought on this Swiftian proposal? Goodness, it’s so ridiculous I feat it’s actually an article by The Onion and not a genuine news organization. If only. At least then, it’d be funny, not the basis of wacky Democratic policy wonk writings.

Seems the Norwegian moose has been found by animal researched to be a very gaseous fellow. Between the belching and other passings of gas, some Algorian idiot has now decided that the Norwegian moose is now a bigger threat to “global warming” than, well, cars!

What the–?

Even when meeting them on their own logical turf, they don’t achieve any sort of logic! Check out the story for yourself here.

According to the German Web site, Spiegel, “a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year — equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey … Norway has some 120,000 moose but an estimated 35,000 are expected to be killed in this year’s moose hunting season, which starts on September 25.”

So, let me get this straight. If your an Algorian enviro-whacko, you must be pro-hunting, then, right? Someone tell PETA, lock ‘em both up and settle this dispute Thunderdome-style.

“Two libs enter! One lib leaves!”

I’d pull up some bar stools for me and a few friends for THAT one…

Former Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder is claiming that liberal readers read more books than conservative ones. Of course, if you look past her posturing, it’s pretty much all B.S. and selective interpretation of the so-called “facts.”

But from whence did the one-time feminazi abortion-pusher suddenly become a source of all knowledge on books and the reading habits of political types? Apparently she lied Congress off her resume to land a job as the head of American Association of Publishers.

In the wake of another “1,000 carefully selected respondents to our poll tell us what YOU think even though we didn’t ask you” public opinion poll, which insisted that 22 percent of liberals “have not read a book in the last year,” compared to 34 percent of conservatives.

Apparently Schroeder and the AAP didn’t get the message from how prodigiously Ann Coulter’s Treason outsold Hillary Clinton’s Living History back in 2003: liberal books get trounced by conservative books when it comes to sales.

The poll also shows that there’s not much difference between liberals and conservatives who do read, though that was given the convenient brushover by Schroeder. Specifically, among political type who do read books, liberals average nine books a year, conservatives eight.

The kicker is actually what we learn about about the so-called “intellectual middle.” The wishy-washy types only average about five books a year, making them the least-well-read among literate types. Maybe if they picked up a few more books, they might actually learn enough to choose a side.

Of course, books aren’t the only things that measure how much a person reads; magazines and newspapers were not measured in the poll, let alone blogs, Web pages and such.

Sloppy work, Patty. When I want you’re opinion, I’ll ask you about animal print bedding, not reading habits.

With all the jockeying going on between states who want to take away the tradition of starting the presidential campaign season in Iowa and New Hampshire is heating up as Florida and, perhaps, Michigan are the latest states who want their votes to be counted first.

This whole electoral snafu is a barometer for the shape of the current Democratic Party and the relationship between grassroots state party chairs and the Democratic National Committee big-wigs who are supposed to be in control of them. Turns out the DNC types are about as in control of their state party leaders as a truck bed liner is in control of a Ford F-150.

With the Democratic-led Congress’ approval ratings now as low as 16 percent, about half of President Bush’s own dismal ratings, things couldn’t be worse right now for the Dems, and they probably don’t even realize, since they feel like they’re only on Hillary-Obama ticket away from the old days when all Republican leaders were in the minority posts or out of power entirely.

Don’t be so sure of the status quo, my liberal friends.