Image via WikipediaDominique Strauss-Kahn arrested for attempted rape!
Here's a man who had everything. As the Chief of the IMF he had done what was universally asckowledged as a superb job of helping the world to navigate out of the Great Recession (though in my view we're not out of troubled waters quite yet).
As one of the major exponents of the French Socialist Party, he was ahead in the polls of all other candidates for the next presidential election in France (to be held in May 2012). He hadn't yet declared himself, but everybody expected that he would and that he'd be able to trounce Nicolas Sarkozy. People on the left were rubbing their hands in anticipation.
And then, this!
What amazes me is that a 62 year-old man could blow it all away like that. In a single moment of folly, bursting out naked from his bathroom (or so the press reports say). At 62 - and he does look all his years and more --, you'd expect a person to have acquired a certain degree of philosophy on such frivolous matters as one-stand sex. And he's undeniably an intelligent man, a capable economist (but then economists are not to be trusted: they never get a single prediction right!).
Why would he ever do this? Ok, maybe he didn't.. This could be all a conspiracy against him, and if you believe in conspiracies, go ahead (I don't).
But one thing is certain, innocent or not, his political future is gone, evaporated, kaput!
There's talk that people will occupy the centre of the political spectrum - maybe, maybe not. But there's one person likely to benefit for sure and that is Marine Le Pen, the head of the rightist National Front. And she wasted no time coming out with criticisms - the only French politician to do so at this point in time - but if the accusations against Strauss-Kahn turn out to be well-founded, just watch all the other politicians join in!. She charged him with "damaging" the image of France (!) - quite frankly, that is something I don't believe. Did Bill Clinton with his games with a pretty young thing in the Oval Office damage America's image? I don't think so.
She also said "she wasn't surprised" given the way he "treats women". That is a more serious charge: back in 2008 there was a scandal with a pretty Hungarian economist, who had to leave the IMF. Add to that the fact that it all happened in a $3,000 room at the Sofitel in mid-town Manhattan, you have a pretty damning picture, even if the rape turns out to be (partly) an invention (after all, the woman could have agreed to his advances, how do we know that didn't happen?) .
The $3,000 room immediately brought up in the press other similar news about his luxurious apartment in Paris and a riyad in Marrakesh and his driving around in a Porsche.
If nothing else, here's a man in love with money and sex...Bizarre tastes for a Socialist!
What's your take on this?
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