I do not mean to suggest that Kerry is corrupt in the manner of the usual French politician. I cannot imagine his filching funds from the U.N.'s food for oil scam. Nor can I imagine his receiving campaign donations from Saddam Hussein as President Jacques Chirac allegedly did. Yet, it is increasingly apparent that Kerry has more in common with a Frenchman than an American.
This can be seen in his proud dilettantism and his vain concern for his hair and his chin. Just the other day, he dragged poor Sen. John Edwards, his running mate, into his hair conceit, bellowing to a crowd of supporters that the two have "better hair" than their Republican opponents.
Reports of his visits to plastic surgeons continue to circulate, one of the first being a report that he sought the perfect chin from a facial sculpture known to be a plastic surgeon to the stars. More recently, it has been reported by the authoritative "Drudge Report" that the senator's wrinkles are again on the rise. Such concerns have never been manifest by presidential candidates of the genuine American sort -- say, Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson. They let the wrinkles come and the hair depart. Their concern was the national interest ... and a few perks.
One of the fascinating aspects of French haughtiness is how easily it renders itself to horselaughs. That note tacked on the door of the New York consulate was meant as a gesture of seriousness about proper deportment, and the result was hilaritas. Kerry's stentorian pronouncements about his policies and his noble character are meant to give us goose bumps, but all we get is a tickling of our funny bones. The French nation may not be the great nation it once was, but it certainly is an amusing nation. Vive la France, the comic nation. If it causes Kerry's campaign problems, let him take his complaints to Federal Election Commission.