It was just when momentous events took place on the international scene that some important personal business kept me away from my writing instruments. The two-month hiatus, however, was rich of observations for anyone who still wonders at human foolishness. Hence, today's commentary will try to catch up on the news.

First, there was the French adversary position over Iraq at the Security Council of Le Machin, and its support from Germany, Belgium, and Russia. "Machin," which in French means "thingamajig," was the word that De Gaulle used to refer to the UN. Obviously, he did not have a high regard for the organization, and his successors did not either. The reasons were quite clear: their vision of France’s Grandeur was incompatible with the acceptance of an international body that defined itself as the world’s moral and legal authority. France, as a world power, could not submit to the whims of killjoys bent on condemning nuclear tests in Tahiti. Then came Mr Chirac, who claimed for the UN exactly that which his predecessors had denied. The implication is interesting. It appears that Mr Chirac has reduced the vision of Grandeur to a paltry veto power at the Security Council of Le Machin, which is an acknowledgement that he has no hope for France ever to reach a status of true world power. But he had to do it because the French for some time have shown more interest in turning their homeland into a welfare state than in efforts to attain some hypothetical state of Grandeur.

Regardless, Mr Chirac’s stance, even though it protected a despicable dictator, garnered much support in his country, where people took it as a manifestation of Grandeur. Hot air plays a crucial part in French politics, where it is easily confused with daring and bravery. Mr Chirac’s popularity rose to 78% in opinion polls, even though the threat of a veto had become futile, President Bush having at that time decided to forgo a UN courtesy blessing. This popularity came at a cost. In a single sweep, the French president had pushed the all-important Machin---his last claim to importance---into irrelevance and had wreaked a few deep cracks in the foundations of the European Union and NATO---perhaps a blessing. Correlatively, French anti-Americanism reached a high point. At the start of the war, a poll revealed that more than a quarter of the population of France rooted for Saddam Hussein. Yet, an association of businessmen of Mr Chirac’s party cautioned him against diplomatic belligerence lest Americans spurn French exports. Mr Chirac apparently would hear none of that, as he next opposed a US proposal to end the economic sanctions against Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s ousting. France probably had a business interest in continuing a program of "food for oil" rendered pointless but in which it held a privileged arrangement. Finally, this untenable position was abandoned at the time of the UN vote. Still looking for opportunities to look foolish, Mr Chirac engineered a military alliance with Germany, Belgium, and Luxemburg. He then declared that under his leadership the seed of the future European armed forces had thereby been planted. Note that Luxemburg total military power may amount to about a battalion, and that France’s lone aircraft carrier has a broken screw with a defective replacement part. Meanwhile, save for the funny military alliance, Germany has been careful to keep a low profile.

Here at home, ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to boycott things French and to do their summer tourism in countries friendlier than France. Smarting from the loss of revenue, the French began whining about how unjust the anti-France campaign was, and accused the White House to encourage it. French pundits who in past months had bashed America and things American declared that the French loved America and Americans and disliked only President Bush. As proof, they offered that jazz and Hollywood movies are immensely popular in their country. And then, some French government official hired Woody Allen to appear in US television advertisements intended to counter the boycott by praising France as a land of wonders and good life. Obviously, in the French mind, Woody Allen, the man who thinks of his neuroses as entertaining enough to be the subject of movies, represents America. Hah! But again, it is in France that serious thinkers consider Jerry Lewis as a philosophical genius whose clowning has to do with existentialism, deconstructionism, and any other profound French-style isms concerned with The Human Condition.

Foolishness, however, proved not to be a European exclusivity. We had our share of it. Once the war started, a couple of retired generals of political disposition who knew nothing about The Plan declared it defective. Self-appointed military strategists of the journalistic sort followed their lead. There were not enough "boots on the ground," they said, using the "boots on the ground" phrase to show that they were quite familiar with military matters. When a sandstorm stopped the advance of the ground troops, the armchair strategists claimed that the offensive had failed, and a few even hinted that the temporary halt was only the beginning of a long-predicted quagmire. And they knew who was responsible for the bad plan and its forthcoming dire consequences. It was Donald Rumsfeld, this self-assured, arrogant secretary of defence, who thought he knew better than the generals and would not listen to them. Well, it turned out that during the sandstorm our air force was pounding Iraqi armored divisions into annihilation, which the know-it-all doomsayers did not know. The boots-on-the-ground rumble somewhat abated only when the Third Infantry Division entered Baghdad. And then, The Plan was revealed. It was a clever plan, and it was well-executed. Its author was General Tommy Franks, not Donald Rumsfeld. Franks’s tactics combined for maximum effect the weapons of all military services with great flexibility, based on battlefield conditions, intelligence, and the use of instant communications. To be fair, I must mention that a lone cable-television network had hired smart retired generals who saw the cleverness of The Plan as it unfolded.

Unsurprisingly, more foolishness emanated from the halls of Congress. Democrats who stridently opposed the war on Iraq just to impugn the president thought it clever to declare that they "supported the troops, but not the mission," which made no sense. For the grunt, it certainly must not have been a morale booster. To be told that one may stop a bullet at any time in a worthless or wrong mission is not anything to raise one’s spirits, politicos’ pious pledges of "support" notwithstanding.

The idea of "embedding" young television war correspondents was a success. First, it acquainted a new generation of reporters with some of the realities of war. Second, it gave them a first-hand exposure to what makes a warrior. It takes special mettle to sign up for a life of "Honor, Duty, Country," where training is hardship, where being maimed or killed is a real possibility, and where the willingness to maim or to kill is a condition of employment. As very few civilians appreciate that, the closer the embedded reporters could get to it, the better they could inform on it, and they did an honest job at it. That was the good side of television.

Now, for the bad side. My peeve is with the shameless industry built by television lawyers around the Peterson murder, and particularly with that daily show hosted by a lawyer short on looks, with a bad hair and a bad voice, who conducts interviews as if they were cross-examinations. Who the heck enjoys watching lawyers speculate on speculations and engage in idle shoptalk? What kind of lawyer would participate in this sort of exercise? "Not the brightest" is my answer to the second question. In my book, bright lawyers show their stuff in the courtroom. They do not swagger on television, which is too easy.

An answer to the first question is less obvious, and may have to do with a return to the Dark Ages, when general ignorance conferred undue prestige and privilege upon The Professions. Otherwise, why would television doctors, lawyers, and preachers get such attention?