BHL on DSK: LMAO?

Mickey Kaus Columnist
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BHL on DSK: I don’t criticize Bernard Henri-Levy’s defense of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It’s good to hear the other side. And so what if BHL seems a little excitable and prone to grasp at straws? It’s not like we’re following him into battle. Oh, wait. …

P.S.–BHL on DSK as an SAT question: To me, the most striking sentence in BHL’s screed was this:

On one side, there were the hardline ultraliberals, partisans of rigorous plans, without modulation or nuance, and on the other, those who, Dominique Strauss-Kahn at their head, had begun to implement rules of the game that were less lenient toward the powerful, more favorable to proletarian nations and, among the latter, to the most fragile and vulnerable.

Isn’t this a little facile–the equation of solvent nations with rich nations with powerful individuals and insolvent nations with the poor and “vulnerable”? Do you have to be a vulnerable “proleterian” nation to overspend and undertax (and therefore need a bailout)? Maybe you are just … I don’t know … corrupt and greedy? Are only rich, poweful nations capable of fiscal discipline? I’m not sure this is a line of thought leftish politicians really want to pursue. (For one thing, the analogy runs both ways: “We need to help our poor because they are just like Greece!” is probably not a winning slogan.) …

P.P.S.: Where do hotel chambermaids fit in this typology? They are probably not the Bundesbank. On the other hand, it does look as if DSK will need all the “modulation” and “nuance” his attorneys can get for him. …

Mickey Kaus