By Jean-Luis Fabiani, May 9th, 2012 
I write here about the election in France, but first must note that the most important European news this week very well may come from Greece. The legislative elections there clearly show the disastrous political consequences of hyper-austerity. They demonstrate that the European handling of the crisis has not only brought no remedy. It has aggravated the problem. The results of the Greek elections provide the context for understanding politics in Europe, including France.
In France, François Hollande’s victory did not come as a surprise, but the nature of the victory indicates fundamental changes in the political landscape. The unexpected element was the relatively low margin of victory. He received only 51.6% of the votes after having led constantly in the polls, approaching 60% at times. Sarkozy’s far-right accented campaign shocked the so-called “Republican right,” leading the center right leader François Bayrou to vote for Holland in the second round of the election. It did, though significantly, enable Sarkozy to win substantial support from those who voted for the far-rightist Marine Le Pen in the first round. This needs deliberate consideration.
Sarkozy’s hyper-nationalist, openly anti-European and strongly anti-Islam stance during the last days of the campaign ominously has reunited the right on an ideological basis. Of course, Sarkozy’s neo-nationalist turn was partly tactical, but now there is a real possibility of a dialogue between the far-rightist National Front and the “Republican” right (the President’s party UMP). The so-called “droite populaire,” a part of the UMP that claims 70 députés in the Assemblée nationale, is not against talking to Le Pen. The new ideological horizon for the French right is undoubtedly one of the most important consequences of the presidential election. Sarkozy has played the nationalist and anti-Islam card with an unexpected dedication, particularly if one recalls his attitude during the first years of his presidency, when he practiced the “ouverture” to the left and to ethnic minorities, appointing the French-Senegalese Rama Yade and the French-North Africans, . . .
Read more: Election in France: A European Roosevelt?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 26th, 2011 
I did not have the time to prepare a post while teaching with Daniel Dayan “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” in Wroclaw, Poland. This was unfortunate because there were news events during the period of the course that seemed to be a series of case studies on our topic. As we were examining theoretical material, which illuminates the roles media play in such cases, media were playing important roles, from the Murdoch scandal, to the terrorist attack in Oslo. Today, I will reflect on Murdoch and, more broadly, the tasks of making distinctions and coming to actionable judgments in the media. Oslo will wait for another day. I draw on the ideas of Eviatar Zerubavel, a distinguished sociologist of cognition and student of Erving Goffman, to make sense of our ongoing seminar discussion and the debate between Daniel and me.
The Murdoch presence in America has long concerned me, particularly Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. While Fox is a strange mix of opinionated journalism and political mobilization instrument, as I have already examined here in an earlier post, the Journal has been a distinguished business newspaper with a conservative slant on the news, with the slant increasingly prevailing over the news in recent years with Murdoch’s ownership. I was struck by Joe Nocerra’s analysis in The New York Times. Concern with factual reality has diminished. Editors went beyond improving reporter’s copy from the stylistic point of view to ideological “improvement.” Political and business news reported was re-worked to confirm the political positions promoted on the editorial page. Note the problem in these cases is that strong distinctions between journalism as a vocation and other vocations are ignored became fuzzy, in the terms of Zerubavel.
Such willful ignorance is also present in The New York Post, another Murdoch enterprise that I see in my daily life. I read it only late at night, picking up a discarded copy on the train when I have . . .
Read more: Making Distinctions: Murdoch, WikiLeaks, and DSK
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 4th, 2011 
Last week’s posts all address the difficult issue of the relationship between public appearance and private beliefs and actions.
Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, Gays and Lesbians are unlikely to become President, Michael Corey reports. Large percentages of Americans would be unlikely to vote for these minorities for the highest office in the land according to a recent Gallop poll. This contrasts with other groups that have historically been objects of intolerance. Only small percentages of the population reveal an unwillingness to vote for a Hispanic, Jew, Baptist, Catholics, woman or African American. Given the definitive role that racism has played in American history, it is striking that of these historically excluded groups, the least amount of prejudice is directed toward African Americans. This represents significant progress. That Mormons, Muslims, Atheists, gays and lesbians don’t fare so well shows that progress is a slow and uneven process. To be sure, even in the case of African Americans and women, the taboo against the expression of prejudice may depress the numbers, as Felipe and Andrew maintained in their replies. There is private prejudice, public denial.
Corey proposes two special reasons for the persistence of prejudice against Mormons, true belief, i.e. ideological certainty, and “know-nothingism,” i.e. intentional ignorance. Michael Weinman explores how these are produced and reproduced in Israel, not only as a matter of official public policy, but more significantly in the naming of a picture book character, Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. The project of official policy to Hebraize the names in East Jerusalem is transparent. Every day practices and expectations about in group and out group relations are more fundamental than the official project of exclusion, resulting in more durable effects. The public project to disappear Arab Jerusalem is strongly supported by the intimate working of primary socialization, turning a difficult political conflict into an impossible one.
The passage of the marriage equality law in New York is a milestone. Changes in everyday practices preceded the event. With gays . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Two Cheers for Hypocrisy!
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 1st, 2011 
It is my custom before sleeping to read a novel. I turn off the events of the day and start my journey into the world of imagination. Last night, I was reading Madame Bovary when my wife told me about the latest turn in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. I was surprised, but left it to the morning to find out what happened. The New York Times report made it clear, the person who had every right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by the courts, appears to be really innocent, a victim, not a criminal.
The implications for French and global politics and culture are significant. I worry that France, which desperately needs a serious political alternative, may be deprived of a capable public servant as President because of a false accusation and prosecution. I also worry that very serious problems concerning the relationship between public and private, the intimate and the open, sex and politics, may now go unexamined because the case is being closed, when serious deliberate consideration is what is needed now more than ever, there and here.
Daniel Dayan and I have been discussing the case as it unfolds. A few minutes ago, I received an email from him, continuing our discussion. We will actually make this discussion a part of our “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” seminar at the Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, later this month.
He wrote:
“Just a little note to set up our discussions to come: I may have told you that I was talking with a friend on a bench in Central Park, one Saturday morning, around 11 AM just when the Strauss-Kahn episode was going on, 10 blocks south. Uncannily, I was telling my friend that Strauss-Kahn was likely to win the elections unless he was the victim of some trap. I did not realize the trap I was anticipating was functioning already while my friend and I were . . .
Read more: Dominique Strauss-Kahn: A Play in Three Acts?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, June 10th, 2011
As I reported last week, Daniel Dayan and I had a nice lunch in Paris on the terrace of a little restaurant at the Palais Royal. He ate blood sausage. My wife, Naomi, and I had couscous with chicken. I followed Daniel’s recommendation and ordered mine with olives, a dish that was his grandmother’s specialty back in Morocco. We discussed what proved to be the theme of last week, looking at North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of Europe. But of course, we couldn’t and didn’t ignore the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, then raging in Paris. The following evening, he extended his side of the conversation in a crisp essay, which we posted on Monday. Here I continue my side of the conversation.
My first response came in the form of an email I wrote him upon receiving his piece:
I don’t agree with you on all points, centered on two issues: the way the distinction between private and public moves (the most general issue), and how the presumption of innocence necessarily varies from one institutional sphere to the next, from the judiciary to the police to the press, for example. Consider the case of a child molester and how the presumption is enacted or not by different people placed differently in the society. This is an empirical and normative issue. More soon. Again it was great seeing you and great receiving the post.
In the case of a child molester, the police look for a suspect and attempt to confirm guilt, while in court there must be a presumption of innocence. Before, during and after a trial, the press and the general public judges, independently of formal legalities, and explores whether they think justice is done by the police and the courts, sometimes in a sensational way. The spheres of public activity and the press are different from the professional activities of the police and the courts. And quite clearly, when the issue is child molestation, the public and the press are predisposed, often without regard to the solidity of the evidence, to believe the police, given the nature of the crime . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: DSK and the Presumption of Guilt
By Daniel Dayan, June 6th, 2011 
In France, is Dominique Strauss-Kahn “presumed innocent” until proven guilty? In fact, he is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Or worse, he is presumed guilty, until confirmed guilty since the French media usually expect courts to confirm their own “enlightened” judgment and can be extraordinarily vindictive when they don’t. Thus, a petition signed by thousands of journalists “condemning” the court that condemned the national French TV Channel Antenne II for broadcasting unsubstantiated allegations. This post is about the media treatment of the presumption of innocence.
Consider a driver who deliberately speeds and runs over a policeman in front of a crowd of witnesses in order to avoid being checked at a road block. The driver is described in the news as the “presumed” author of the policeman’s coma. The word “presumed” here is a language automatism, an adornment, a legal curlicue. There is not a shadow of a doubt that this driver‘s car hit the policeman. No matter how grotesque, the word “presumed” tends to be repeated in such situations “ad nauseaum.”
With DSK, we are in a situation where the presumption of innocence matters because the facts are not established. Despite various forms of lip service, this presumption is resolutely trampled. In a recent talk show about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, stand-up comedian Michel Boujenah expressed uneasiness about the fact that most of the journalists around him started from the premise that DSK was guilty. He reminded them that DSK had to be considered innocent until proven guilty. “Yes, yes,” said the journalists. Then they went on with their debate. To them, the presumption of innocence was an annoying contrivance, something akin to the presence of a vocal anti-racist at certain dinner parties; a presence that proves annoying since it prevents guests from cracking race jokes. The stand-up comedian reiterated his remark. He was definitely spoiling the fun. “OK,” replied one journalist, just add an “if” to everything I say. Just put my words in the conditional!” Then he resumed the discussion as if the guilt of DSK was beyond any . . .
Read more: Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Presumed Innocence
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, May 29th, 2011
I started to write this post at 37,000 feet, between New York and Paris, flying to see my grandson, Ludovic, and his parents Michel and Brina (my daughter). Preoccupied by the private purpose of my visit, I tried to think about recent public events and their meaning. I was looking forward to private pleasures, working on public matters.
My trip is very much a family affair, no lectures, no meetings planned with colleagues. I am not even sure we will see any sites: Paris without the Eifel Tower or the Louvre, maybe a hardware store or two as Brina and Michael are in the middle of some serious home renovations.
But as I hurtled through the sky over the Atlantic, I wondered about how the private is linked to the public, aware of the fact that generally the French and Americans, and more particularly the French and American media, have dealt with this in very different ways, revealed in recent scandals.
Americans are more likely to look for the truth of the public by examining the private. The French are more convinced that private matters are not public issues. Both have important insights and blind spots, apparent in this week’s news and in the discussions here at DC.
Gary Alan Fine welcomed the candidacy of Tim Pawlenty. Fine, who enjoys what he calls pungent political discourse of the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, also recognizes the importance of serious political debate, seeing this possibility in Pawlenty. But there was another such candidate presenting serious alternatives to the Democrat’s positions, with a record of accomplishment. Many informed Republican partisans thought Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana would be an even more significant candidate. But the twice married to the same woman politician with an apparently complicated private life, chose not to run. His family, specifically his daughters, vetoed his run. Fear of public exposure of what should remain private deprived the Republicans of a candidate. Public debate and contestation has been diminished by the apparent confusion of public and private virtues.
![]( "Dominique Strauss-Kahn (official IMF portrait) © Unknown | IMF photographic archives") . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Thinking about Public and Private at 37,000 Feet
By Gary Alan Fine, May 26th, 2011 
For a dozen years I have taught a freshman seminar at Northwestern University, entitled “Scandal and Reputations.” When I first selected the topic “Bill and Monica” it was the topic du jour, filled with phallic cigars, hypocrisies and conspiracies. I had planned the course to capture that sour, if momentarily historic, time.
Over the years I have never been without subject matter. I could pick and choose among the birthers, the deniers, the earthers and the truthers. Would we discuss churchly pedophiles or Abu Ghraib? DUI or DNA? Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen, Britney, Paris or OJ Redux? Always some claim of conspiracy or scandal emerged that would capture the attention of students.
This week demonstrates that whether we run out of oil, we won’t run out of oily elites. The case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund and prominent French socialist politician, is instructive. (Yes, yes, innocent until proven…). Mr. Strauss-Kahn is currently holed up in a snug government-supplied suite on Riker’s Island (a neo-socialist dream of free housing for all). Mr. Strauss-Kahn has been arrested and accused of having attempted to rape a hotel maid in his self-paid suite at New York’s Sofitel. No doubt several of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s new compatriots will be happy to turn the tables on their new friend. DSK, don’t drop your soap in the shower.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn was apparently naked in the bathroom when the maid arrived. As a prominent economist, he surely figured that since he was already naked, intercourse was simply a matter of structural efficiency. Perhaps he saw her as “my cute little Portugal.” Never having interned at the IMF, she had not been adequately educated in recognizing how the powerful organize the lifeworlds of the powerless. Metaphors gone wild.
But the tawdry events at a slick hotel reveal something more. First, they remind us that often what makes bad behavior scandalous is when it emerges outside the local domain in which “everyone knew” of its likelihood. As more evidence appears, it seems that Strauss-Kahn’s colleagues were aware that he was a sexual predator. Possibly they were surprised . . .
Read more: Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Charmed Circle of Scandal
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