I am almost irrationally enraged about this freedom fries business, to the point of wanting to do physical harm to Messrs. Jones and Ney if I ever see them in person:
French fries in the House of Representatives' cafeterias will now be known as "freedom fries" as part of a Republican protest at France's opposition to a war on Iraq.
Republican representative Bob Ney, whose committee is in charge of the eateries, said the action was "a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France".
French toast from now on will be known as "freedom toast".
But then I got to thinking, don't Congressmen (note the deliberate use of the masculine) have the right to blow off steam at the workplace just like everyone else? Maybe taking diplomatic pot shots at France on the eve of war is the House equivalent of shooting Nerf guns at each other over cubicle walls during the last big push before a product launch at a tech firm. As a taxpayer, I'm not going to begrudge a little tomfoolery on my dime as long as they're taking care of business in the meantime.
So what's the problem? It's the whole "you either wit us or agin us" mentality. If the US were a person, nobody would want to hang out with him (again, note the deliberate use of the masculine). You don't want to play on our team? Fine. We're gonna blacklist you, stonewall you, ridicule you, and basically make your life a living hell. Is this really how we want to represent ourselves as a country? We're running the world like the Mafia.
Oh, and if we're going to do this whole French bashing thing right, we need to nuke the Statue of Liberty. They sent it over here in 1886...there's probably thousands of French troops still hidden inside, biding their time, waiting to strike when we're all asleep. Goddamned backstabbing, ungrateful, cheese-eating (zing!), non-English-speaking traitors!
ps. French fries are from Belgium, not France. What's next, deporting the Pennsylvania Dutch back to Holland?