WASHINGTON -- My high school French is rusty, but serviceable enough to understand the hotel clerk’s answer to my question about Dominique Strauss-Kahn: “C'est une catastrophe.”
As it happened, we were in Normandy, touring the D-Day beaches, as the sexual assault case against Strauss-Kahn collapsed. So the inspiring tableaus of the landing sites may have had something to do with my defensive reaction to the news.
More precisely: with my defensive reaction to the French reaction to the news. The American cemetery in Normandy contains the graves of 9,387 servicemen who died to liberate France. So perhaps I could be forgiven for bristling more than usual at expressions of Gallic outrage over the barbaric American legal system.
As in Bernard-Henri Levy’s Daily Beast post denouncing the “globally observed torture” of Strauss-Kahn's perp walk. “This vision of Dominique Strauss-Kahn humiliated in chains, dragged lower than the gutter - this degradation of a man whose silent dignity couldn't be touched, was not just cruel, it was pornographic,” Levy declared.
This is over the top but, I have to admit, not as far as I originally thought. In fact, the more I learn about the crumbling case and the prosecution's conduct, the more concerned I have become.
Some have argued that the very fizzling of the case against Strauss-Kahn represents the triumph of the American legal system. William Saletan in Slate: “What the collapse of this case proves is that it’s possible to distinguish true rape accusations from false ones -- and that the government, having staked its reputation on an accuser’s credibility, diligently investigated her and disclosed her lies. The system worked.” Peter Beinart in The Daily Beast: “whether or not DSK goes free, his case reflects well on American justice. We can hold our heads high.”
