The Left's Knickers Are Showing, President Sarkozy

Nicholas Sarkozy, a conservative who ran for President of France on a platform of signficant economic and social change, won the election decisevely with well over 80% of all eligible voters casting their ballots. One would think that this would give him a mandate to aggressively pursue his conservative adenda. Well, one would think that so long as one were not the far left of center NYT:

Arrogant, brutal, an authoritarian demagogue, a “perfect Iago”: the president-elect of France has been called a lot of unpleasant things in recent months and now has five years to prove his critics wrong.

That is a textbook reaction of the left. Yes, Mr. Sarkozy won the election and, indeed, may even have won a mandate for his political views, but for him to be successful, he must spend a good part of the next five years of his presidency proving his critics wrong? He must pander to those who did not vote for him and who do not share the views of the majority? Ridiculous - and not to mention a sure recipe for failure. Mr. Sarkozy has the next five years to pursue his conservative agenda on behalf of France. The NYT and others of their ilk have the next five years to complain about it and write hand-wringing op-eds.

This casual observation of the NYT is truly a knee jerk reaction of the left to any victory by conservatives, regardless of the mandate. If you look how "bipartisan" is defined by those left of center, it is "to convince the other party to do precisely what we propose." One can see it in action in all the left do, whether from France to our own House and Senate. Their sense of entitlement does not end simply because some misguided voters did not see the higher truth of which they are the guardians. In America, when that happens, it is invariably accompanied by ridiulous charges of voter fraud or intimidation (though these same left of center types seem to have no problems with voter intimidation when it comes to paying back big labor).

Do read the entire article here. Ahhh, the left, thy name is intellectual dishonesty.

Update: Sigmund, Carl & Alfred find related faults with this NYT story.