Sarkozy in the US

As I write this, president Sarkozy of France is paying a short two days visit to the US. fresh from a landslide electoral defeat in France, where the Socialist party took 21 of the 22 Provincial governments (the 22nd was won by the fascist party). The US press barely mentionned this visit, although France is one of the strongest of our allies. His speech at Columbia sounded dangerously leftist to American ears (strict financial regulations, closing tax havens, making fun of the US for taking care of the sick 50 years after Europe solved that problem.) In France he is seen as a hard right conservative, dangerously enamored of all things American. Hence his huge defeat at the polls in this era of high unemployment and economic crisis.
Sarkozy had hoped for a State Dinner at the White House, but instead will have to be satisfied with a private affair.
He has remained deaf to Mr. Obama's call for more help in Afghanistan. Any French troop increase would not be supported by a public lulled by 60 years of peace in Europe and where the horrors of WWII are still the Nr. 1 topic at many dinner tables.
So whereas the Obama Administration is under fire for being dangerously socialist, the real Socialists in France are winning by painting a conservative Sarkozy as a dangerously pro-American politician.
The reality is that, whether Obama (on his country's left) or Sarkozy (on his country's right, but way left of Obama), little can be done as long as the Masters of Finances are the real rulers. The current crisis has caused huge unemployment, a surge in poverty, and destroyed the middle class. As long as our politicians will depend on them for their campaigns, do not expect much change. In 1922 president Millerand of France complained already about "The Money wall".

It is ridiculous for the Republicans to warn against "a European syatem" or a "French type solution". Just as it is for French socialists to say:" anything but the American system". If you take the Health Care Reform Law, for instance, you would think that taking care of the sick and the poor would be a natural policy for a party that claims so loudly to be christian. Isn't it weird that it is de-christianized Europe that leads the way in taking care its most vulnerable?