Thats a good point about ex-pats. I had the same experience in Paris. I think the only blatant anti-Americanism I saw was from some former Americans.
Ever know someone that didnt own a tv? Did they ever let an opportunity go by to mention they didnt own a tv? These guys are from the same mold.

Musee D'Orsay is a must see. If you have a week spend it in the Luevre, if you have a day split it between the two.

What did Olivier Blanchard have to say? I sometimes wonder if he modulates his message a bit depending on what country he's in.

An attorney friend in Paris recounted to me how two American lawyers that work in her office burst into tears after learning that the Bush victory was confirmed. Without a doubt the majority of Americans in Paris are strongly anti-Bush. But a lot of it probably has to do less with political beliefs than with dealing with personal tensions. These conflicts are traumatic to people -such as myslf- whose lives happen to rest on international fault lines. I know I'd be ecstatic if the insufferable Chirac was replaced by the pro-American Sarkozy, or even better, by Alain Madelin (the liberal candidate). Not only because I believe their policies are better for France, but also, selfishly, because it would make my life in America a lot easier on a daily basis.

I just posted on my blog RE: Morella as a VP candidate. It will never happen. She's too moderate, and too timid. As a former constituent, she doesn't have the type of character needed to be a VP candidate (she's a very poor attack dog), and while she might haves served some good as a moderating influence, she doesn't have the spine to stand up to the Republican leadership.

I doubt that the next GOP nominee will be terribly concerned with nominating a blue-stater for VP. I hope someone like Chuck Hagel gets the party's presidential nomination, whatever his contributions to hi-fallutin overseas talk-fests. If he does, he'll want to shore up the red-state majority with a more "conservative" running mate. If someone more Bush-ite than Hagel gets it, I can't imagine they'll give a darn about the political center.

Bill Schneider is the essence of banality on TV. He strikes me as someone completely self-satisfied; someone who thinks any simplistic analysis he makes is an anaylsis the rest of us couldn't have made on our own.

What do the French and Americans-who-want-to-be-French think? I don't know. Lafayette, we have returned.

Did Dan add #3 since the last time I checked his blog?

I'm not sure who Olivier Blanchard is, but he seems to me to be EXACTLY RIGHT. (Of course, I've been trying to make that point on many of Dan's recent "sky is falling" exchange-rate posts. Guess it carries more weight coming from a tenured MIT economist than from an anonymous blog commenter. Who knew?) A general decline in the value of the dollar vis-a-vis the euro seems to me to be in the aggregate beneficial to the United States. Too many people have short-lived memories: the last few years have been out-of-whack; we are now merely returning to the natural level of the dollar following the Plaza Accord. Moreover, the doomsday scenario we are talking about (collapse) seems to me to be singularly unlikely. The dollar is simply not the same as the Argentine peso.

But what we all want to know is what one Daniel W Drezner spoke about (because we don't get enough Daniel W Drezner here at danieldrezner.com). Was he erudite and charming? Did Feulner chew him up and spit him out?

Oh, and the Morella suggestion is asinine. Or did you think that Lieberman was helpful to Gore?

What guts it takes to call someone "asinine" as one posts under the name "Al" at email address "none@none.com". Drezner has written books for God's sakes, one of which he's made available on this site for free. Who cares whether he charmed the French.

The possibility of a "hard fall" of the dollar has been suggested by serious academics -- yes, even MIT economists, see Lester Thurow's "Fortune Favors the Bold".

The "tragedy of the commons" is not simply academic pipe-dream, and the dollar remains the "common" currency. Moderate declines against certain currencies may mean moderate gains for Americans. But that's not the issue. The issue is a run on the dollar, which happens indepently of self-righteous investors, bloggers, academics, and public officials. Instead, it happens directly as a result of self-interested investors, bloggers, academics, and public officials. The latter trumps the former.

I'm with Al -- either my eyesight is busted or Dan's #3 appeared after my query above. But anyway, it's interesting to hear that Blanchard seems relatively unperturbed by the capital account side of a declining dollar. I guess he thinks those East Asian central banks will take their lumps on their dollar assets as it depreciates.

P O'Neill,

Maybe Dan found reason to amend his post; if so, that's his prerogative, and it doesn't diminish the value of your posts related to political economy.

Perhaps I should praise you for providing links to your blog, for better or worse. Personally, I say for worse. Your anti-Irish, homophobic posts of late are pure crapola. (Anyone interested, click on P's name above. Once his blog appears, scroll down and click on the "one year lag" link, which refers to Andrew Sullivan. Read the text that gets you there.)

I've listend to Sen. Hagel from time to time speak on programs, evidently either because he was asked to or because he felt he should. Sen. McCain does the same thing. The purpose-driven politician's life needs to keep such appearances to a minimum, the better to maximize the impact of those occasions when one has something to say.

Similarly, it was refreshing to hear ACLU head Nadine Strossen say that 90% of the USA Patriot Act was completely unobjectionable...

I was struck that you had to go to Paris to hear this. Strossen may not be a media favorite, but she certainly doesn't try to keep her opinions a secret.

Furthermore, this is not just the position of Storssen or the ACLU. Kerry said pretty much the same thing during the debates. The 2004 Democratic Platform indicatess that the Patriot Act has both good and bad provisions: "We will strengthen some provisions of the Patriot Act, like the restrictions on money laundering. And we will change the portions of the Patriot Act that threaten individual rights, such as the library provisions, while still allowing the government to take all needed steps to fight terror."

When a well informed conservative finds it "refreshing" to hear a liberal recite the Democratic party line, it seems like the Democrats have a major communications problem.

One wonders just how much anti-Americanism abroad is driven by the distorted lens of American expats.

Not much. Non-Americans are perfectly capable of getting information about the U. S. from many different sources, and of course personal experiences. Besides, it's hardly the expats who "drive" the main manufacturer of anti-Americanism, the U. S. foreign policy.

I'd agree with Oscar. I'm no fan of President Bush, but you'd be surprised how many times I've defended him from absurd claims I've heard from friends I've met in Europe.

Yeah, people I've talked to who have been in west Europe say the Europeans don't need much help when it comes to Bush bashing. I've also heard that idea that non-Bush voters end up feeling they have to defend the president.

What guts it takes to call someone "asinine"

The suggestion was asinine, not the person who made it. Even the most brilliant among us can come up with stinkers now and again. Sheesh.

And if Lester Thurow is promoting the idea of a hard fall, then I am even more confident that there will be none. That guy's been wrong about basically everything forever. It's like reading a Fred Kaplan article: the truth will invariably be the exact opposite of what is written.

Okay. For some reason I had the urge to be provocative yesterday and I'm not very good at it, so apologies to Al and P. O'Neill for my lame efforts.

In regard to Thurow, I don't know much about him, so the info is useful. I would add that in the book, which is more than a year old, he doesn't say a crash of the dollar is inevitable, though he does argue it's likely. It's one of the big threats to globalization he sees, another being the lack of protection for intellectual property. There's concern about epidemiological crisis too, if I recall correctly.

Connie Morella could only be considered as a VP to balance a ticket if the GOP nominee were considerably to the right of Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. She's not "moderate," she's liberal and would be a Democrat if she lived in a Red state.

I'm going to have to agree with Ryan. Suggesting that Morella should be on the VP shortlist is to completely misunderstand Republican politics. I'm baffled as to why you would suggest Morella.

I certainly agree with the sour American expat thesis from my time in London (and to a lesser extent Sydney). It is one of the more interesting unintended consequences of globalization. Theoretically by allowing us to jet around more, should bring people closer together. But this misses the selection effect of emigration – people emigrate if they don’t like their home country – for whatever reason. Another example I think includes the phenomena that a part of the Europe is f’cked thesis originates from the views of and conversations with European emigrants to Britain, Australia and the US. Ditto Brits in Oz.

And in some ways I think this is healthy – I’ve always thought the real stranger cole was the emigrant who didn’t think his home country was f’cked – because if it is (which it usually is, why else would they leave? Because they couldn’t get a job?), it shows they came from a culture without a strong tradition of self criticism. And that’s really dangerous!

It seems fairly obvious that Europe is going to be very badly hurt by the entire dollar adjustment being against the Euro rather than being spread out among the Asian currencies as well.

The question is why are the Europeans not screaming like crazy about the entire adjusment being forced onto them?

Spencer
Look at Britain and the Gold Standard in the 20's. Sometimes people think that having the international reserve currency is more important than, well, anything else.

Yea, I gotta agree with Kevin, I mean Kerry essentially ran on we have to only change p arts of the Patriot Act. I'm not sure what's so refreshing. This has been the standard line for a long time.

Huh? Kerry said he wanted to "replace" the Patriot Act.

Huh? Kerry said he wanted to "replace" the Patriot Act.

Meaning, I assume, that he wanted to replace it with an act that provided the same intelligence-gathering abilities as the Patriot Act, while reigning in the execesses of the John Ashcroft. If you can find a transcript of the talk in which John Kerry said this, post it and I'll check it out. In the mean time, here is a quote from Kerry in the second presidentail debate:

I believe in the Patriot Act. We need the things in it that coordinate the FBI and the CIA. We need to be stronger on terrorism.

But you know what we also need to do as Americans is never let the terrorists change the Constitution of the United States in a way that disadvantages our rights.