[Previous entry: "Brad in Toronto"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Brad reports on Toronto"]

04/29/2003 Archived Entry: "The Monde"

"American, British and Monaco forces land in France," the front-page headline screams. "Chirac calls for resistance and disappears ... Pro-American uprising on Left Bank in Paris." So states The Monde, a satirical take-off on Le Monde, which appeared in France over the weekend. Highlights from the 16-page spoof newspaper, include:

--Bush states the invasion's aim is "to liberate France from the tiny, dirty naughty Chiraqi-Saddamistic crew".
--Bush, cheered on by Donald Rumsfeld, wants to call the invasion "Operation Big Spanking". But he is dissuaded by Colin Powell, his secretary of state, because the name might inflame world opinion.
--French-hating Monaco joins the alliance of the willing to invade France, with the promise of a "jumpseat" on the Security Council.
--Blair is shot down by "friendly fire" as he returns to London in a Tornado fighter jet after participating in a bombing raid over Normandy.
--Kurds set up an autonomous state round the Bastille.

I have added a new word to my vocabulary: fisking. The Libertarian Samizdata glossary defines it as: "Fisk verb. To deconstruct an article on a point by point basis in a highly critical manner. Derived from the name of journalist Robert Fisk, a frequent target of such critical articles in the blogosphere (qv). Usage: "Orrin Judd did a severe fisking of an idiotic article in the New York Times today..." The Volokh Conspiracy blog expands on this: "The term refers to Robert Fisk, a journalist who wrote some rather foolish anti-war stuff, and who in particular wrote a story in which he (1) recounted how he was beaten by some anti-American Afghan refugees, and (2) thought they were morally right for doing so. Hence many pro-war blogs -- most famously, InstaPundit -- often use the term "Fisking" figuratively to mean a thorough and forceful verbal beating of an anti-war, possibly anti-American, commentator who has richly earned this figurative beating through his words. Good Fisking tends to be (or at least aim to be) quite logical, and often quotes the other article in detail, interspersing criticisms with the original article's text."

Best to all,
mac