End of the world: new details available

Iran in general and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular have featured prominently in neocon obsessions about their plans to bring about the revelation of the Hidden Iman via a global apocalypse.

So the neocons should be freaking out about this photo of Ahmadinejad taken in Doha, Qatar, today Tehran yesterday before heading to Doha Qatar today where he was a surprise guest at an emergency Arab summit called to discuss the crisis in Gaza. Behind him is a sentence from the Old Testament and the Koran: "is not the morning nigh?". The sentence comes from the section of the holy books that deals with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the escape of Lot's family from it, except of course for Lot's wife who looks back at the city and is turned into a pillar of salt.

In an additional twist, given Ahmadinejad's claim that there are no gay people in Iran, those events are also critical to the Islamic perception of homosexuality, since a mob that shows up outside Lot's house the night before the destruction shows no interest in his virgin daughters. Strangely enough, with all this imminent doom, George Bush is on a 4 day vacation.

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

Was 9/11 God's will?

George Bush might think so. Early on in his widely ignored farewell address (given with 5 days in a tumultuous world still left in his Presidency) --

Fellow citizens: For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence -- a time set apart.

Those last four words stand out as a bit precious for a political speech and sure enough, they have a history. He used them before in his 2004 State of the Union --

in a subtle reference to religious texts that refer to divine service as a time “set apart,” he said: “Having come this far, we sense that we live in a time set apart.”

So maybe the nation was in divine service the last 8 years, or more likely, he was. There's also an echo of one of the strangest right wing talking points about 9/11, that it was an Epiphany. Bush always speaks about his confidence in the judgment of history. But it's God's judgment that he's surest about.

Florida 2000 still hurts

Dick Cheney, during a lie-packed interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS (which others will debunk more carefully) --

And I think there were some people out there who questioned the legitimacy of our administration, given the way the Florida recount ultimately turned out.

There was no Florida recount. That was the problem.

UPDATE: Another Cheney interview, for the semi-official Fox News Agency, seems to lay the rhetorical groundwork for some torture and surveillance pardons, as well as for Scooter Libby.

He is the decider

The White House won't comment on the latest -- and fairly definitive -- accusation of torture in Guantanamo Bay. The reason is laughable --

Q I had a question about Gaza -- but on the issue of [Mohammed al-]Qahtani, can you just define the term "command influence" -- what the issue --

MS. PERINO: I'm sure there is a legal definition of it, but as I understand it, the Commander-in-Chief should not be commenting on cases where the government is bringing a case against a detainee. It would be inappropriate to do so from the White House. DOD is running the interrogations and the detainee trials -- tribunals, as we call them, military tribunals -- and so it's appropriate that we keep that over there. And Geoff Morrell* put out a statement last night and I'd refer you to that.

The claimed logic being that since George Bush is, as he constantly reminds us, Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces, he should be commenting on a "trial" in which those armed forces are judge, jury, and executioner. But how does a policy of no comment change the fact that George Bush is, as he constantly reminds us, Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces which is running trials in which those armed forces are judge, jury, and executioner? An imaginary wall between the White House and Pentagon doesn't do much. That's precisely the reason not to be running these tribunals in the first place.

*She seems to mean Bryan Whitman.

Entropa - Ireland

Here's an annotated image of the Ireland element of the Entropa installation in Brussels; other country depictions have been a source of controversy but the Irish one seems faithful to the self-assigned mission of the artists to mock national stereotypes (it appears to be sheepskin with bagpipe attachments).

The brochure attributes the Irish piece to John O'Connell, but news accounts claim that the entire installation was done by a 3-man Czech team led by David Černý and not 27 artists as originally claimed.

UPDATE: It's not clear from a photo of the actual installation whether the Ireland element is the same as in the brochure (from where the image above comes). Which calls into question whether the Czechs ever verified that what was being hung in Brussels corresponded to what their brochure said.

Guests of the nation

The Pentagon and White House are mounting a final PR offensive to defend Guantanamo Bay before the new administration comes in. Here's Dick Cheney from an interview with Bill "Dice" Bennett today --

Q ... The papers are reporting this morning that President-Elect Obama may, on the first day or first week, close Guantanamo. Good decision, bad decision?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's a bad decision. Guantanamo is sort of a symbol I guess to the left in this country and maybe to some of our critics overseas. But the fact is it's a very well-run facility. The Red Cross is down there all the time checking on it; reporters are free to go down, members of Congress and so forth, to look at it and see what kind of facility it is. And the fact is it's first-rate.

The other key thing that people forget is that we've got a couple hundred very bad actors down there. We've been through, several times, a scrub of the population in Guantanamo. And a good many more have been returned than we still hold, have been returned to their home countries. Now, out of that group, some number has, in fact, gone back onto the battlefield against us.

So we've not been, I think, especially harsh in terms of the judgments we've made. We have let some people go, and we erred a bit on the side obviously of -- in letting the wrong people go on a few occasions. But now what's left, that is the hardcore.

Leave aside the many questionable assertions and focus on the Cheney claim that they can't release more people because some of the already released people have subsequently engaged in terrorism. Further leave aside the issue of whether it was Gitmo itself that produced the desire to engage in terrorism. The Pentagon has given some numbers:

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

No details have been provided. One telling detail would be the country to which the detainees were released. Because there's been a de facto policy that "friendly" countries get their detainees out while "unfriendly" or "awkward" ones don't. Friendly meaning in particular countries in the Gulf -- from where former detainees might have gone to Iraq or Afghanistan to take up the struggle.

So the real issue is that once you've decided to lock people up potentially forever, you lose any rational basis to decide if you're going to let any of them out. And thus criteria like diplomatic awkwardness start to matter, even if they don't help in predicting the likelihood of being a terrorist.

Once there's a specific date by which the place has to be closed, as there will be when Barack Obama takes office, minds will start to concentrate on the actual individual characteristics of each detainee, and not the crock-of-shite "evidence" used to lock them up and whether or not one of Cheney's oil buddies lobbied to get some of them out.

UPDATE 23 JANUARY: Note the relevance of the above to the case of Said Ali al-Shihri, alleged 2nd in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula following his release from Gitmo. He is a Saudi national released to Saudi Arabia. It's strange how a failure of a release under the Bush policy is being used as an argument against a policy change!

1/20 will change everything

White House statement --

The President today declared an emergency exists in the District of Columbia and ordered Federal aid to supplement the District's response efforts in support of the 56th Presidential Inauguration.

The President's action makes Federal funding available to the District of Columbia.

OK so bureaucratically there's a reason for this. The city may need money to help with all the extra costs. But is this the kind of thing you start thinking about the week before the event? And is this a record for declaring an emergency before a fully predictable event has happened? In another omission, the emergency declaration makes no reference to the already catastrophic traffic.

Gaza: Mission Accomplished

Tony Blair, taking time out from the Gaza crisis to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, whose previous winners include George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer -- for victory in the Iraq war (December 2004). Maybe it was a relay.

UPDATE: The actual medal citation for Blair mentions Afghanistan and Iraq but also Kosovo (intervention which Bush in effect opposed at the time) and Sierra Leone. That Blair no doubt sees a philosophical linkage between the Sierra Leone and Iraq interventions is critical to understanding how jumped aboard the Bush adventures.

FINAL UPDATE: In a McCain like tic, Blair was fiddling with his ring finger.

One bubble for the road

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke speaking at the London School of Economics today (the appetizer for Jonah Goldberg's visit in a couple of weeks) --

The Committee [of the Fed] takes its responsibility to ensure price stability extremely seriously, and throughout this period [since 2007] it remained closely attuned to developments in inflation and inflation expectations. However, the Committee also maintained the view that the rapid rise in commodity prices in 2008 primarily reflected sharply increased demand for raw materials in emerging market economies, in combination with constraints on the supply of these materials, rather than general inflationary pressures.

He needs to blame China and India for high oil and food prices, because the alternative explanation is that all the easy credit that the Fed and other central banks were creating financed a speculative frenzy in those commodities, drove them through the roof in the first half of 2008 -- and so made the subsequent recession worse.

Speaking of chairman of the Federal Reserve, is Gordon Brown still claiming that Alan Greenspan is one of his advisers? He hasn't mentioned him much recently.

Truly, madly, deeply deluded

George Bush to his farewell Cabinet meeting --

We also reviewed our record, and this administration has had a good, solid record. I'm very proud of it. I tell people I leave town with a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high.

Politics is a battlefield

A question prompted by the emerging details of the first official Barack Obama inauguration event --

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Denzel Washington, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Stevie Wonder are among the stars who will participate in Sunday's inaugural opening celebration, which will air live on HBO.

"We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial" is the first of official events sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Barack Obama's inauguration.

With a title like that, where's Pat Benatar?

Also, in an explicable scheduling choice, it clashes with the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game.

You finally see the truth, that a hero lies in you

George Bush --

I've thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?

So his regret about Katrina is not the botched response, the thousand deaths, the fact that New Orleans still hasn't recovered: it's that the first response that the White House came up with was the Louisiana as flyover country photo-op. That Super President didn't land and inspire people with his appearance. Even when he screws up, it's always about him.

Which people, exactly?

George Bush's valedictory news conference --

I mean, I had a lot of people -- when I went out to Midland that time -- say, what the heck are you doing? Those people up East caused the [financial] problem

Bono in the New York Times

Ideally one would include in any discussion of the attitudes prompted by hearing Frank Sinatra sing My Way the fact that Sid Vicious really influenced how many people think of that song. Bono did not. But there is also the fact that Bono probably drinks in places full of well off customers, so maybe the dry cynicism of Frank rather than the in your face defiance of Sid was the dominant trope.

Historical reference

It's interesting that the Vatican is not going for the usual "he was misquoted/mistranslated" on the reference of Cardinal Renato Martino to Gaza as being like a concentration camp but the follow-up approach should the controversy continue might be to note the original usage of the term from the Boer War, where it makes for an interesting benchmark with Gaza. Very difficult to do without the inflammatory language, but also a reminder that the Germans got propaganda value in WW2 from being able to say that the British had done "it" first.

Back at the scene of the crime

An interesting little nugget from US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's valedictory (as he sees it) speech with Q&A at the Center for Strategic and International Studies --

I was in the transition from President Ford to President Carter, and I must say I was surprised -- I stayed on with the new team for about three weeks, and all the vaunted secure filing cabinets in the Old [Executive Office Building] EOB were empty. There was not a single piece of paper that was transitioned to the new team. And I've always thought this was very -- not good governance at its best.

The specifics of the transition in terms of paperwork would have been overseen by Gerald Ford's chief of staff.

That would be Dick Cheney.

He lies like a rug

George Bush has repeatedly praised his decision-making powers concering the choice of a rug when he moved into the White House and used it as an index of his wise decision-making more generally and that of Laura. But now it turns out that Laura is not actually much of a decider when it comes to rugs, as we found out today when she unveiled the George W. Bush china -- the new pattern that the Obamas will be stuck with along with all the other appointee cronies when they move into the White House.

Here's Laura talking about the rug --

But it was very complicated to design and then to have these rugs built, which are more complicated than you might guess, to first to do the designs, to settle on the designs, to settle on the yarn colors. It included a lot of strike-offs, just like with the china being sent back and forth from the mill in North Carolina, the carpet mill that made these carpets, or the Lenox, or Anna Weatherley, where they would strike-offs, we would look at them, we would tweak them, we would say that doesn't do, we're going to have to do something else. And so it ended up being a very long and complicated process.

If this amount of time was going on a rug, no wonder the White House seemed so passive when an actual crisis hit. One other bit of news from Laura's session with the media about the china --

Q Mrs. Bush, what will you do on the night of January 20th? You'll fly back to Texas?

MRS. BUSH: That's right. We'll fly back to Texas, and we'll end up at our ranch with a number of friends who will be going with us, who will be there with us that night to spend the first night at home there. So that will be fun.

And then a few days after that, whenever it's -- the painters have finished, we'll move -- I'll move -- the moving vans at our Dallas house and move in there.

In other words, their stuff is being shipped to the new place in Dallas, not "the ranch", and Laura is going there ahead of George to meet the trucks. She can't get out of the political prop fast enough. And away from George?

Won't get fooled again

So Tom Friedman, Bernard Lewis, Christopher Hitchens, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Bill Kristol, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Wall Street Journal all detect the hidden hand of Iran in the Hamas war with Israel. So hidden that they all assert it without producing a shred of evidence that it's actually the case. Haven't we been here with this crowd before?

UPDATE: Some reality-based reporting on the Iran-Hamas linkage.

He's still around

Buried in one of George Bush's fin de siecle appointment stuffers ("President George W. Bush today announced his intention to appoint 45 individuals") is --

The President intends to appoint the following individuals to be Members of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, for the remainder of two-year terms expiring 05/03/10:

....

Jason Sehorn, of California.

Oh yeah, that dude. The star cornerback for the New York Giants, husband of Angie Harmon, and, as a couple, part of the much needed glamour at the 2004 Republican Convention (remember this was the one with Zell Miller snarling at Chris Matthews) --

Tonight to recognize two men who embody the American spirit of bravery and sacrifice. Their heroic feats earned them our nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor.

SEHORN: Some say that playing football takes courage - but it's just a game. Nothing compares to the valor of these men. These are America's heroes. They know the price of liberty. And they support President George W. Bush.

HARMON: The first sailor to earn the Medal of Honor was John Williams of the USS Pawnee during the Civil War.

When the ship's flagstaff fell, the wounded captain held the splintered remains in his hand, keeping the flag aloft and rallying his men.

SEHORN: The Medal of Honor represents the highest aspirations of our country, a duty that demands sacrifice, honor drawn from character...

HARMON: And a country where the flag is lifted high, and freedom still reigns. SEHORN Tonight we honor the bravest of the brave ....

HARMON: We thank you both for your service to America, and to the cause of peace and freedom in the world. And we join you in supporting a leader of courage -- a President building a safer world, and a more hopeful America.

It's hardly necessary to point out the farce of a presidential ticket with two draft dodgers on it wrapping themselves in military heroism. Or to wonder what precisely was the message: Vote Bush-Cheney, and you too can be like Angie 'n' Jason?

But anyway, George hasn't forgotten the favour. Perhaps Barack Obama should task him with figuring out how to reduce those awful ACL and MCL injuries.

One of those Purple Hearts

George Bush, consistent with his belief that the First Family suffers the most --

I want to thank you [Admiral Mike Mullen] for honoring Laura, who's been a fabulous First Lady. (Applause.) The military gave her the Distinguished Service Award -- a lot of friends from Texas think she deserved the Purple Heart. (Laughter.)

Worse than Iraq

Here's a typical statement from Multi-National Forces Iraq (i.e. the US military) --

BAGHDAD — Insurgents launched nine indirect fire attacks into neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital 12-13 July as Iraqi and Coalition Forces continue to seek out and destroy these cells ... "Whether they are aiming at Iraqi and Coalition Forces or at civilians, these sorts of attacks endanger all Iraqis," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, official spokesman for the Multi-National Division - Baghdad and the 1st Cavalry Division.

"Indirect fire attacks pose a significant threat to all citizens," Bleichwehl said. "Identifying and destroying the insurgents who use such tactics is the focus of many of our operations."

Interesting fact #1: "Indirect fire" is the military term for mortars. It gets across that it's not a particularly accurate weapon since it's not "directly", if you will, aimed at anything.

Interesting fact #2: The Israeli attack on the UN school in Gaza (Jebaliya) used mortars.

UPDATE: If Israel can so quickly name the Hamas fighters it was targeting in the school, why could it not use more selective weapons than artillery shells against them?

One for the road

White House --

President Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, and former Prime Ministers Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and John Howard of Australia, on Tuesday, January 13th, in an East Room ceremony. The President is honoring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad.

All three leaders have been staunch allies of the United States, particularly in combating terrorism. And their efforts to bring hope and freedom to people around the globe have made their nations, America and the world community a safer and more secure world.

How intensive can those Gaza peace efforts be if the Quartet Representative, i.e. Blair, is making plans to be in Washington next week? Or is that week the de facto deadline to Israel to have wrapped something up in Gaza -- just as the Bush-Blair meeting in the summer of 2006 was the implicit deadline to Israel in Lebanon, before things went pear-shaped?

On the other hand, John Howard probably has a fair bit of time on his hands.

UPDATE: Blair is also so busy with the Gaza process that he has time to attend Nicolas Sarkozy's financial crisis meeting in Paris later this week.

FINAL UPDATE: John Howard is the mysterious occupant of the White House guest quarters, Blair House, keeping Barack Obama out of it -- and, as a result, the source of traffic chaos in Washington given the street closures around Obama's hotel.

Kristof gets results

Should we be concerned that the US National Security Adviser has enough time on his hands that all he seems to do is issue statements arguing with the New York Times? Here is Stephen Hadley today complaining about the NYT's Nicholas Kristof, who wrote a clearly well-briefed column over the holidays on how the administration was resisting severe sanctions (such as a telecom and naval blockade) of Sudan to alleviate the Darfur crisis. Bush is now suddenly in a rush to get a UN mission airlift completed, with 2 weeks left in his Presidency. Part of the desperation of Bush is that he has partly packaged his legacy as Bush of Africa (since the Bush of Arabia dog won't hunt), so anything that tarnishes that is big trouble. For his self-image.

Does Gaza not have cats?

Official White House statement -- as the White House works to block a ceasefire in Gaza:

The President, Mrs. Bush, Barbara, and Jenna are deeply saddened by the passing of their cat India ("Willie"). The 18 year-old female black American Shorthair died Sunday, January 4, 2009 at home at the White House.

When Barbara was nine years old, she named India after the former Texas Ranger baseball player, Ruben Sierra, who was called "El Indio." When Barbara and Jenna moved away to college, India, affectionately called "Kitty" by the family, stayed at the White House with the President and Mrs. Bush.

India was a beloved member of the Bush family for almost two decades. She will be greatly missed.

Perhaps Blair House, the mysteriously unavailable guest house when Barack Obama needed it, is now needed for Willie's wake.

Note: as owner of the Texas Rangers, George W. Bush traded Ruben Sierra for Jose "Juiced" Canseco.

UPDATE: Islamists website notices the Bush grief over the dead cat.

He's more upset about the after-hours drinking part

There was something strange about today's Irish Times story on property developer Sean Dunne: it relied entirely on quotes from the New York Times profile of him. As if they feared there was litigious content in it, at least for the Irish media. Now this --

Developer Seán Dunne has clarified remarks attributed to him in the New York Times. The paper quoted him as saying that, if the banking crisis continued, 'I could be considered insolvent'.

But in a statement, Mr Dunne's office said the developer had been misquoted. His office said the quote given to the newspaper was: 'With countries, banks in almost every country and legends of the banking world for over 100 years going bust in the current credit crunch, I would not bet against myself or anybody else being taken out. However, if it does happen, I would like to think that my conservative gearing prior to the credit crunch and the location and quality of my assets present as good a buffer as is possible.'

Mr Dunne's office also said the interview did not take place at 3am in Doheny & Nesbitt's pub in Dublin, but for 12 hours over two days.

His official quote has the clear ring of a written statement, and not something that might have been said over the course of a conversation.

The strange thing is that it's not clear there's anything really wrong with the statement he is now disowning. Banking crises can make solvent people insolvent. That's why they are so bad. The issue appears to be that he, or the New York Times, broke an Irish taboo.

The hits keep coming

Dick Cheney is a funny guy. Unintentionally. He did a live interview on Face the Nation (CBS) with Bob Schieffer. A few tidbits --

Q Do you think, on reflection, that in fact we did have a bad plan [in Iraq]? ...

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we could debate that forever, and we may well. I think that the original campaign was masterfully done, in terms of the small, fast-moving forces you say that achieved our initial objectives of taking down the regime and capturing Baghdad. That was a masterful performance ... So I would chock that up to miscalculation. I'm not at all sure that having had 400,000 or 500,000 troops there would have achieved the objective we're talking about there. What we finally did, what finally sort of got us across the goal line here, was the surge the President decided upon, coupled with the counterinsurgency strategy.

It's nice of Dick to use an (American) football analogy. He would have us believe that things in Iraq had gone so brilliantly up to the end of 2006 that all that was needed was one last bit of heroism from the quarterback, George Bush, lunging for the goal line like Bart Starr in the 1967 Ice Bowl.

Dick also has an interesting counterfactual for how things could have been done better in the Iraq planning --

The question of how we moved forward, you can debate about whether or not we had the right structure in place, for example, was -- would we have been better off with setting up a government in exile, with exiled Iraqis and getting that organized and in place before we went in, and then turning it over to them.

This is a close relative of the Bush-Rice claim that Iraq only went wrong because America was too high minded to install another strong man after Saddam. But the talk of a "government-in-exile" brings up the name of Ahmad Chalabi, who was of course advocating precisely to be head of a government in exile and thus be installed once Saddam was out of the way. You don't hear much about Chalabi any more. Dick clearly has some regrets about that.

They can't blame Václav Klaus for this one

Expectations for mishaps during the Czech presidency of the European Union Council had focused on its Eurosceptic president, Mr Klaus. But his hand is nowhere to be found in this embarrassing statement issued today by the EU presidency --

Official EU Presidency Statement concerning the situation in the Middle East

The only official standpoint of the Czech EU Presidency concerning the actions of the Israeli ground forces in the Gaza Strip.

I would like to apologise for the misunderstanding which occurred on 3 January 2009 about the reaction of the Czech Presidency to the actions of the Israeli ground forces in the Gaza Strip according to which the operations were seen as an act of self-defence. The only official standpoint of the Czech Presidency is the following:

"It is not surprising that the Israeli forces have launched land operations in the Gaza Strip. There were indications that Israel had been considering this step. But even the undisputable right of the state to defend itself does not allow actions which largely affect civilians. We call for the facilitation of humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, and in accordance with the position agreed by the EU Foreign Ministers in Paris on the 30th December 2008 we call for the establishment of a ceasefire."

An earlier statement by a Czech spokesman quickly found its way to jubilant conservative bloggers. Are the Czechs going to tell us what happened?

Disproportionate, indeed

Bush loyalist Michael Gerson in the Washington Post --

There is no question -- none -- that Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified. No nation can tolerate a portion of its people living in the conditions of the London Blitz -- listening for sirens, sleeping in bomb shelters and separated from death only by the randomness of a Qassam missile's flight.

The death toll in the Blitz, 1940-41, was 43,000. During the V-rocket bombings in 1944, about 9,000 died. Note that Gerson appears to have confused the Blitz with the rockets.

He then goes on to complain about other people not understanding the meaning of disproportionate.

More French than the French

Occasionally American conservatives profess a love for the ideas of the French. Nuclear power. The Battle of Algiers. And the gold standard, or its post Depression successor, fixed exchange rates. Here's today's Wall Street Journal enlisting Nicolas Sarkozy in the cause --

Now Nicolas Sarkozy and others want a new Bretton Woods. In a speech to the European Parliament in October, the French President said that "the monetary system should be rethought [within] fixed exchange rates." For our money that's about the best economic insight Mr. Sarkozy has offered.

Except that's not what he said. He said --

Nous devons porter l'idée d'une nouvelle régulation. L'Europe doit proposer ces idées et elle les proposera ... Que le système monétaire soit repensé entre des taux de change fixes et pas de taux de change entre les monnaies.

or

We must promote the idea of a new regulatory system. Europe must propose these ideas, and it will do so ... The monetary system has to be rethought, between fixed exchange rates and no exchange rates at all.

Sarko was not calling for a system "within fixed exchange rates" but between fixed rates and no rates at all i.e. unrestricted floating. So a standard call for exchange rate stability, albeit with his own preference more towards the fixed end, no doubt. But it's funny how the same conservatives who recoil at the notion of "world government" in most circumstances want the full global apparatus that would go with a global regulated currency system.

UPDATE: It's not clear where the WSJ got its translation, since it's not what Sarko said in either language, but an obvious chopping of the sentence before its final clause. Here's one contemporaneous account that does use the WSJ wording, right down to the square brackets -- from a Lyndon LaRouche blog.

They're both very athletic

Fox News just did a report (around 16:40 GMT) on how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has introduced a slight relaxation of its policy on gifts, allowing amateur college athletes to receive souvenir packages that can be valued at up to a few hundred dollars for participation in bowl games. It's a balance between allowing the students to get a tiny percentage of the cash bonanza that surrounds these games without worsening the creeping professionalisation of the sports.

Except that the Fox News reporter doing the story referred to the organization as the NAACP -- the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the 100 year old civil rights group. Could it be that Fox News has its wires crossed about who the typical athlete receiving these gifts might be?