It may well be that’s he the hapless victim of a black Muslim widowed penniless refugee maid – although, if that’s the defense my lawyer were proposing to put before a Manhattan jury, I’d be inclined to suggest he’s the one who needs to plead insanity. Whatever the head of the IMF did or didn’t do, the reaction of the French elites is most instructive. (…)
The arrest of a mediocre international civil servant in the first-class cabin of his jet isn’t just a sex story: It’s a glimpse of the widening gulf between the government class and their subjects in a post-prosperity West. Neither Geithner nor Strauss-Kahn have ever created a dime of wealth in their lives.
Full disclosure: I’ve often stayed at the Sofitel myself, though without billing Western taxpayers for the pleasure. Nor do I generally require the three-grand suite. Given how comfortable the Sofitel’s more modest accommodations are, I wonder whether even M Strauss-Kahn does. Especially when he’s presiding over an IMF with a budget deficit of some $400 million. But perhaps it would be unreasonable to ask so famously unzippered a man to tighten his belt.
