American politics through a French lens

To wrap up my French revision for the night, I went to [Lemonde.fr ](http://www.lemonde.fr/)to read a spot of news in the beautiful language.
Not surprisingly, the home page had a photo of Barack Obama and his newly-announced running mate Joe Biden. What was more interesting was that the headline said, “[Biden, choix par défaut pour les blogueurs démocrates](http://www.lemonde.fr/elections-americaines/article/2008/08/23/joe-biden-le-moins-pire-des-choix-pour-les-blogueurs-democrates_1087260_829254.html)”.
That made me look a second time. Was this French newspaper reporting about what Democratic bloggers were saying? From what I could understand, Biden was the ‘least bad’ of all the choices, which was plausible since hardcore Democrats would probably know the candidates well enough. The article itself has a modified headline, saying Biden was the default choice.
Along the way the article referred to other American websites which were quite interesting and have now been added to my feedreader: [The American Prospect](http://www.prospect.org/) and [Talking Points Memo](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/). I have also seen the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1op8vwF5UA) tearing the President apart for screwing up the Iraq invasion and not supporting the troops enough.
Amusing phrases taken from another website, Simply Left Behind, and translated into French, lend a second layer that sounds delightful. Biden, it is said, “traîne beaucoup de casseroles” (drags along many pots and pans) and “parler sans réfléchir” (speaks without thinking). Taken too literally, it would be amusing to imagine the white-haired senator barking at many pans of baked food to exercise.
US elections excite me. American politics in general, too. Long-time readers will know that I too, like Obama, opposed the Iraq war from the start and even designed an [anti-war protest wallpaper](http://vantan.org/archives/2003/03/no_war_wallpape.php). (Hmm the high-res versions are missing; I’ll see if I can locate them.)
Other archived material which may be of slight interest to newer readers: [Deep Throat](http://vantan.org/archives/2005/06/and_deep_throat.php), my [first mention](http://vantan.org/archives/2004/11/abortion_iraq_a.php) of a charismatic young Barack Obama at NDC 2004, my [mostly correct predictions](http://vantan.org/archives/2002/08/bush_fire.php) that Bush would go to war and screw up (alas, he got re-elected).
And I am still annoyed that Western media and politicans [don’t know how refer to Osama properly](http://vantan.org/archives/2003/03/bin_there_done.php). How can you try to anticipate his moves and hunt him down, when you don’t even understand something as basic as his name?