Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Obama Insults Sarkozy By Writing to Chirac.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_22-2009_03_28.shtml#1237811772
According to the French newspaper, [1]Le Figaro, President Barack
Obama has written a letter to French former president Jacques Chirac
using language more commonly used when writing to current heads of
state (via [2]Monsters and Critics):
Paris -US President Barack Obama has indirectly praised former
French president Jacques Chirac's fierce opposition to the US-led
invasion of Iraq, the online edition of the daily Le Figaro
reported on Thursday.
In a letter described by Chirac as 'very nice,' Obama wrote, 'I am
certain that we will be able to work together, in the coming four
years, in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world.'
The use of the word 'peace' was taken to be an indirect reference
to Chirac's stance against the US intervention in Iraq, which Obama
had also opposed as senator.
Of course, if Bush had done this, we would have weeks of jokes on TV
about how he doesn�t know who the President of France is.
It has been reported that Sarkozy has been trying to get an invitation
to the White House. Since I seem to recall that Obama has met Sarkozy,
I doubt that Obama simply forgot who the President of France is, but
it�s possible. The likelier possibilities are that (1) Obama was
trying to send some sort of insulting message to Sarkozy, or (2) Obama
was clueless about how a letter suggesting that he wanted to work with
Chirac would be interpreted by Sarkozy or the French press, much as he
was clueless about his snub of British PM Gordon Brown.
As a possible reason for writing Chirac, consider this [3]Wikipedia
entry on what Chirac has been doing since he left office:
After his presidency ended, Chirac became a lifetime member of the
Constitutional Council of France. He sat for the first time in the
Council on 15 November 2007, six months after leaving the French
Presidency. Immediately after Sarkozy's victory, Chirac moved into
a 180 square meters duplex on the Quai Voltaire in Paris lent to
him by the family of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
During the Didier Schuller affair, the latter accused Hariri of
having participated to the illegal funding of the RPR's [Rally for
the Republic�s] political campaigns, but the justice closed the
case without further investigation. On 11 April 2008, Chirac's
office announced that he had undergone successful surgery to fit a
pacemaker. In January 2009 it was reported that Chirac had been
hospitalized after being attacked by his pet Maltese poodle, who
had been medicated with antidepressants.
Shortly after leaving office, he founded the Jacques Chirac
Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue.
More at [4]GatewayPundit.
References
1.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2009/03/19/01001-20090319ARTFIG00357-confidentiel-barack-obama-a-ecrit-a-jacques-chirac-.php
2.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1465571.php/Obama_tacitly_honours_Chiracs_stance_against_Iraq_war_
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Chirac#Life_after_presidency
4.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-upsets-sarkozy-with-letter-to.html
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