CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA — Enroute to Seattle to be humiliated by Seahawks fans during a two week vacation, a solitary reporter stopped here to chat up President Obama and French President François Hollande during their visit to Monticello, where President Jefferson presided over his slave empire while avoiding the steamy environs of the early republic’s climate in the District of Columbia.
“C’est bien un vrai paradoxe, mon vieux, n’est-ce pas?” the solitary reporter asked Hollande. “Il a écrit la Déclaration d’Indépendance (‘tous les hommes sont égales’), mais, comme propriétaire de son domain, il a tenu en esclavage peut-être plus de cent esclaves; pourriez-vous expliquer? Aussi, la Révolution Française s’est inspirée par, parmi autres, les mots de Thomas Jefferson.”
Taken aback by this rude behavior, Hollande, only momentarily nonplussed, said, in English much better than the solitary reporter’s French, “What I have never understood is why you silly Americans almost fought a war against us right after we saved your butts. If it hadn’t been for us, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson would have all gone to their deaths on the scaffold.”
As Obama was scratching his head wondering under what circumstances the solitary reporter had managed to break through his security cordon, the solitary reporter conceded the point, but then asked Hollande why Charles de Gaulle thumbed his nose at the USA after taking the reins of power in France. Hollande replied that France is the center of the universe and was therefore entitled to do whatever it wanted.
As Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe tried unsuccessfully to pry the solitary reporter away from the important people, Obama shook the solitary reporter’s hand and wished him good luck in Seattle, “Especially, SR, since you’ll be wearing your Peyton Manning Omaha T-shirt there."
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