Uneasy Rhetoric

Thank you, Language Log.

Not surprisingly, John Kerry speaks excellent French. Also not surprisingly, he doesn’t want to display his “puissance” in public, for fear of the wrath of the conservative punditry. Rush Limbaugh has already made some hay about this non-issue, as have a slough of other conservatives.

This is sad. I would like to say that it is a symptom of America’s fear of foreign language speakers in general, as the New Yorker writer seems to suggest, but that isn’t it. Remember how much gushing there was over the fact that GW Bush “spoke” Spanish? Granted, the gushing didn’t last long (probably because Bush’s Spanish left something to be desired), but it didn’t hurt his candidacy either.

I think Kerry plays right into Limbaugh and his dittoheads’ hands when he tries to avoid his French ancestry or his ability to speak the language. He needs to confront it head on, and stamp this non-issue into the ground tout de suite.

Any American who criticizes a person’s French heritage (or German, or Russian, or Spanish, or any other European people) ought to search out their own heritage. So John Kerry is French. Big deal, so are a lot of other Americans. What’s a name like “De Lay” anyway?