Restrain your schadenfreude!

Here's a thought! I saw a liberal blogger commenting on how painful it was to see the "wingnuts" so gleeful over the rioting in France. Hmm, thinks I, who is "jumping for joy" as this blogger accuses?

I can't say I found much honest "jumping for joy", but I have to admit, there is a certain satisfaction oozing from many posts out there. Certainly of the "I told you so variety." Even more common are the breathless predictions of worsening, leading to raging conflict across the continent. No one has had the nerve to say it yet, but you know that a thousand hands are eager to type the words "a quagmire for Chirac."

There really is a resemblance for the doom and gloom predictions from the right concerning France, and the long-running gloomy outlook on Iraq from the Left. One group fully expects to see civil war in Iraq, another confidently predicts civil war in France. Those who hope for peace in Iraq, and those who pray for peace in France are distressed, as well they should be.

As Theodore Dalrymple says in today's WSJ, "apocalypses have a habit of not happening." France has been around a long time, and has survived much. Likely it will survive this, just as it is likely the Iraqis and the U.S. will find some sort of stable government. We should be careful not to run off into negative fantasy, like some New Orleans politician.
We can hope, I expect, that some n France, or more particularly, in French leadership, will be a bit less quick to point out others faults and troubles, now that theirs are so much in evidence. We can hope, but don't expect much.

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