Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Can You Tell the Difference?

Jacques Chirac today, in a moment of zany French humor, attempted his best Donald Rumsfeld impersonation.

Mr. Chirac, in an unusual outburst to reporters in Brussels on Monday after a contentious emergency European Union summit meeting on Iraq, derided those Central and East European countries that have signed letters expressing their support for the United States as "childish," "dangerous" and missing "an opportunity to shut up."

He went on to suggest that opposing France and Germany could hurt candidates for European Union membership.

"When you are in the family," Mr. Chirac said, "you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door."

He warned that Romania and Bulgaria, the poorest of the 10 candidates to the 15-member bloc, "could hardly find a better way" of reducing their chances for membership by speaking up against France.

Feeling inspired by the goodness and the strength than is Donald Rumsfeld, Chirac went on to challenge the Bulgarian Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to a "Mon pénis est plus grand que votre pénis" contest. No word yet on the winner, though Rumsfeld is said to have been "surprised."