Editor: The first two senteses are vintage Wooldridge/Micklethwait Oxbridger dullwitted slur, against a long gone caricature of Left Pariaians, like Sartre?
Can a country still call itself an ally of America if America is threatening to annex part of its territory? Such a question might once have seemed ripe for a Gitane-puffing philosophe to ponder in a Saint-Germain-des-Prés café circa 1968.
Editor: Too bad some of their readerhip will miss that wan little gibe. But the parade of caricatures in the headline continues, they cleaned out the rhetorical closet with ‘Gitane-puffing philosophe’ chatter ? The aways servisable anonimous source appears on cue!‘Channelling his inner Jean-Paul Sartre, a European diplomat quipped: “With allies like Donald Trump, who needs enemies?”
The Economist Actors appear:
The Gaullists: in 145 words.
The Atlanticists: in 209 words
The Gaullists & The Atlanticists tagteam it: in 191 words
Editor: The final paragraph under the rubric of ‘How many divisions does Europe have?
All countries contain bits of the four factions in their political establishment. (Germany, set to get a new chancellor following elections on February 23rd, is hard to place in any camp for now.) Even if Europeans were to agree on an overarching defence plan, the thorny question of how to pay for it would then need to be resolved. Some cash-strapped countries could afford to spend more on defence only if funding came through borrowing the money jointly at EU level, a non-starter for fiscal hawks. That would open up another can of divisions for future summits to ponder.
Editor: After all the evocative word play, and a large cast of characters: Gaullists, Atlanticists, denialists and Putinists topped by : ‘Gitane-puffing philosophe to ponder in a Saint-Germain-des-Prés café circa 1968’ the final paragraph sinks into – the end of that train ride into the office, seems a welcome respite from Ecomomist vacious political chatter!
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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