Look in the mirror

Via digamma, this great insight from Crooked Timber:

Much of the reason why French Gaullists annoy US Republicans is that they have so much in common. There's little doubt that, if Chirac had the kind of global power that Bush does, he'd abuse it in exactly the same way. Australians and New Zealanders, who've seen Chirac and his predecessors throwing their weight around in the South Pacific (long used as the site for French nuclear tests), are well aware of this. The same kind of heavy-handedness is evident in domestic policy and seems to have contributed to the riots.