But Enough About Cairo . . .

The French Way

At Pajamas Media, John Rosenthal questions why one of Obama's pre-speech interviews was granted to a small French channel:

"iTELE enjoys a whopping 0.8% audience-share. That's dead last among the seventeen channels . . . So why iTELE?

"Perhaps it has something to do with the interviewer, iTELE's White House correspondent Laurence Haïm . . . For if French journalists in general have abandoned any pretense to objectivity while reporting on American politics in recent years -- as has been extensively documented on blogs like No Pasarán or my Transatlantic Intelligencer -- Laurence Haïm's preferences are even more transparent than most.

"Until nabbing her interview with President Obama this week, Ms. Haïm's greatest claim to fame was to have burst into tears while announcing the re-election of his predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2004.

" 'You can, I think, see the fanaticism of these people here,' Haïm says, referring to the merrily celebrating Bush supporters behind her. 'You see the screen, you see the Fox News channel, you see the American flag, you see these people. George W. Bush is going, then, to become president again for four years.' And then, after remarking on her mounting emotions, she repeats the phrase punctuated by convulsive sobs. 'George W. Bush . . . is going to become president again . . . for four years.' "

Here is her blog, A la Maison Blanche, if you want to check out the interview and reach your own conclusion.

Firing Offense?

I quoted a post the other day from Tommy Christopher of AOL's Politics Daily. He rightly ripped Playboy for putting up a graphic piece about the author's desire to have hateful sex with 10 conservative women. After that, says the conservative Newsbusters, AOL deleted the piece, fired Christopher and refused any further mention of the article (which Playboy took down by day's end). Christopher says AOL claimed to have yanked the piece because it was too profane. No explanation so far for the firing.

Meanwhile, the same Playboy author, Guy Cimbalo, uses the B-word in attacking Michelle Malkin and says she has "mental problems." And to think I once told people I read it for the articles.