Why do the French make it so easy...

With all their moral superiority and snobbish, "we are French," nah-nah-na-nah-nah attitude, you'd think the French would try harder to hide their dirty laundry. They covered up that oil for food fiasco for a long time, but now there's a new story again linked to oil (gosh I thought Americans were the only oil burning, baby seal clubbing, war for oil nation on this planet). Apparently in the Ivory Coast (or in French La Cote d'Ivoire), civil war has been on-and-off for the past two years, but the French have involved themselves to keep the popular sitting government from putting up their oil deposits up for international bids. Silly French, did you think we wouldn't find out. Our media would never report this; they swallow the French press lines whole without bothering do their own fact finding. Check out SCSU Scholars and the Big Dog for a good French fisking (that sounds kinda dirty). I do really enjoy poking fun at the French. Being able to speak the language probably has a large part to do with it. It's always more fun to swear at someone when you can do it in their native language. Really, it's like a joy welling up in me whenever the talk turns to the stupid habits of the French. It nevers fails to make me smile. UPDATE: The crack young staff at The Hatemonger's Quarterly join me in mocking the oh-so mockable French: "Which aspect of the French personality do we most detest? The inept, effete caterwauling, or the disgraceful moral preening? Or the inflated sense of ego? Or the coddling of authoritarians? Or Gerard Depardieu?" That's a pretty tough choice. UPDATE pt. deux: Pajama Journal links a canadian editorialist who insists Americans not move in droves Canada and approves of Dubya saying anyone who "manages to simultaneously annoy France and Germany, not to mention those renowned deep, geopolitical thinkers, the Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, P-Diddy or whatever he's calling himself now, Gwynneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck." Then joins the fun with France segment noting that "America invades Iraq without UN approval and America is portrayed as a barbarian striding across the world stage. Recently, France essentially invaded the Ivory Coast to protect its interests there ... without asking the UN squat. Just pointing out the hypocrisy" and "Plus, let's face it: France deserves to be annoyed by as many people as possible, as often as possible, if only for encouraging Jerry Lewis by telling him that he was a genius" (that's almost below the belt... almost) and more "Not to mention for exporting snotty wine culture across the Atlantic so that otherwise reasonable North Americans have turned into cork-sniffing oenephiles -- although the word sounds like an exotic perversion, it just means wine-nerd -- who can actually say with a straight face: "This is a full-bodied Cabernet, rich with a full body tasting of plum, blackberry and leather cooked on an oak plank.'" Let it rip.