The Errant Æsthete

“Col. Gadhafi must understand that our country is not a doormat on which a leader,
terrorist or not, can come to wipe the blood of his crimes off his feet.”

–France’s Secretary of State

France is seething over the official visit of Moammar Gadhafi to Paris—a landmark affair, considering that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s invitation was the first such offer from a Western leader since Gadhafi’s notorious rupture with the West in the 1980s. Not only was Gadhafi received formally—if coolly—at the Elysees Palace, but the onetime international pariah, whose secret services blew a couple of packed airliners out of the skies, was invited to address the French National Assembly—an event that the majority of assembly deputies boycotted. [Link]