The long, dark days are over. We can, at long last…call them french fries again.
The fries on Capitol Hill are French again.
So is the breakfast toast in the congressional cafeterias, with both fries and toast having been liberated from the appellation "freedom."
Three years after House Republicans trumpeted the new names to get back at the French for snubbing the coalition of the willing in Iraq, congressmen don’t even want to talk about french fries, which are actually native to Belgium, and toast.
Neither Reps. Bob Ney of Ohio nor Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, the authors of the culinary rebuke, were willing this week to say who led the retreat, as it were, from the frying pan. But retreat there has been, as a casual observer can see for himself in the House’s basement cafeterias.
When you read the article, be sure to note how the Republican leadership are all pointing fingers at each other to assess blame for the name change. Mature…really mature. (More from Steve guest posting at C&L.)
Yep. Your Republican Congress hard at work on issues that are important to you. Yes, that’s right folks — something on Iraq or the other foreign policy debacles? Nada. Solving the nation’s current energy crunch, including the rapidly rising cost of fuel and electricity and our outdated energy infrastructure which is stretched beyond capacity in today’s heat wave? Zip. How’s it going on the Gulf Coast and in Florida where they are still rebuilding after two straight years of devastating hurricanes, with another one headed inland as I type — and not enough national guard and reservese to go around in case there is another catastrophe? Zilch. Budget deficit? Nothing on that either.
"Now that they’ve changed the name of the french fries back, maybe they will admit their other foreign policy mistakes were wrong, too," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader.
Not betting on it. Had enough?
Related posts:
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
Maybe now we can change the “Freedom Tower” to the “New World Trade Center.”
Ohhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm.
French?
Zut alors!
Oh sure, this is just to make all nicey-nice with the French because we want the French Foreign Legion to be the ones to occupy southern Lebanon.
Sonofdy,
Go screw.
-GSD
Katrina kinda put a macabre flourish on those efforts once upon a timeto rename the French Quarter the Freedom Quarter.
Yeah, lots of freedom with Katrina. Freedom from life.
Those French
They ____ with thier ____.
And they _____ with thier ____.
It’s merely another sign of this despicable government, and their neverending quest for irrelevance (aided and abetted by a public more interested in the next ‘idol’ than anything of actual import) to the changing world. One of these days, Americans are going to be forced to wake up to the fact that life is something more than a few commercials and a sitcom. I can only hope it is sooner rather than later.
Congressman Jones who initiated the Freedom Fries thing has changed his mind about the War on Iraq and is now a Republican vocal opponent of it.
Congressman Bob Ney who had the power to approve the nomenclature change at the House cafeterias faces imminent indictments about Abramoff bribery. His Democrat opponent in that safe GOP seat is beating him in the polls already…
Mmmmm, French Fries. I must admit that I ate them with almost every meal on vacation. Bad for the wasteline, but not so bad for the tastebuds.
As for “Freedom” — wazzat?
What I really cannot understand is why no one seems to hold them responsible. If your auto mechanic was this incompetent, there would be threats of lawsuits going around. Your own government? Oh well, what can we do…
More proof that (some) people get the government they deserve…and the rest of us have to suffer…
so . . . does this mean i can start calling my FREEDOM TICKLER my FRENCH TICKLER again ????
My contribution: more french wine, to counteract the effects of antifrench propaganda.
Aw, c’mon! They’re very busy arranging votes so they can look like they’ve tried to do stuff, only to be stymied by those dastardly Democrats. It’s hard work!
“Jesus is coming! Look busy!”
I can’t believe it took three years for this to be undone (couldn’t believe it was “done” in the first place, but whatever).
Guess it’s right up there with those important issues like flag-burning and gay marriage and making the Pledge of Allegiance immune from court interference, that all Americans lie in bed at night worrying over.
Someone must have had a hankering to spend more money having menus and signage and stuff re-printed.
Another victory for the teeny-tiny mind set.
puppethead @ 5
I keep thinking of Condi’s famous “We’re going to forgive Russia, punish France, and ignore Germany.”
Do you think she’s learned anything, like that this is a (the?) textbook example of bad diplomacy resulting from short-sighted stupidity and arrogance? They’re such awful people.
So did George W. Bush give Joe Lieberman a “freedom kiss” or a “French kiss”?
-GSD
Wow, just catching up on the last 3 threads. When Christy said buckle our seat belts, she truly meant it.
Only comment about what has gone before, probably been said already somewhere, just make sure Ned is advised of everything that has been said and done in the last 48 hours BEFORE MTP because Joe will be ready to hammer with it.
They love to make a big deal out of little things instead of talking issues. And little things ALWAYS happen. Too many people involved for there not to be. and I hate it when we all jump around saying No, No, No. If something went wrong say it was wrong and move on. And laugh if that is all they want to talk about (instead of iraq)> How is Iraq going Joe? Any mistakes made? By the way are people still talking about the non-union buttons of Joe’s? Mistakes made.
puppethead @ 5
Please keep reminding us of that quote!
puppethead at 5 — You know, somehow I missed that quote, although I don’t exactly find it surprising.
This one was one of those things that left me and plenty of other people flabbergasted here in the EU: the French do not agree to join in the war and the Republicans and the right media go nuts and start … changing names to fried potatoes?! No reflection or serious discussion, no rational argument on why half of the World was dead against the Iraq war, they went straight to just random craziness and hate spitting.
The whole thing left me speechless.
The first time I read about this nonsense and about other madness like smashing French wine bottles and boicotting French resturants I had to check to be sure it was not the 1st of April … It was one of those signs that clearly showed that something was rotten in the Bush administration and the culture behind it
So Ned and JoMo are going to be on MTP together? I think Ned can counter this–if it comes up–by merely pointing out that he had nothing to do with it and never heard about it till reporters asked him about it. That’s assuming it even comes up, and if it does, Joe Lieberman actively courted the support and friendship of Sean Hannity, a man who calls liberals “evil” and equates them with Terrorists, has been endorsed by Ann Coutler and Michelle Malkin and Pat Robertson.
No more Freedom kissing?
No more lettres liberte’?
Jim @ 17
Oh Christ…
I’d forgotten all about that.
Bad enough she said it then, but it’s even more damning of her idea of foreign policy now, when the moron is running our State Department. First of all, France is now proven right about every warning they gave us, all advice they gave. And second… Just how, exactly, did we punish France? What, did we make them sit on the comfy chair? Poke them with the soft pillows?
Heck, even that would have been SOMETHING.
Fucking Joe is going to pay young Republicans to come to CT and campaign. They had better put some security around the Kiss Float.
so now I dont have to cross-off “French Dressing” on those Kraft bottles and replace it with Freedom Dressing labels!
Just how, exactly, did we punish France? What, did we make them sit on the comfy chair?
Well, O’Reilly seems to think he massively damaged their economy with his boycott, but he also the thinks the sun is a foor-colored, square-shaped star.
Oh yeah, Condi’s going to be taken seriously, after all that.
NOT.
Looks like the controversial graphic is off of huffpo.
Jim at 28 — …he also thinks that a falafel is a sexually stimulating possibility…mwahahahahahahahaha. (Oh man, that one still cracks me up.)
Jim @ 17
Condi is going to stick with what she’s best at: photo ops with matching chairs (and preferably, a nice centerpiece).
LJ/Aquaria @ 29
only in network studios on Sunday mornings
If they couldn’t resist the urge to be petulant little snots when they renamed everything that had the adjective “French” in it, why would we have any hope that they could be grownups now?
I hope Mr. Daly was being sarcastic, because I sometimes get the idea that the Democrats in Congress haven’t been living through the last five years with the rest of us.
I am always surprised at the variety of views in the Israeli press as compared to the monotone coverage in American media. Two examples from Haaretz:
This war is the most unsuccessful we have ever had
Ze’ev Sternhell
“That is how a campaign of collective punishment that was begun in haste, without proper judgment and on the basis of incorrect assessments, including promises that the army is incapable of fulfilling, turned into a war of life and death, if not some kind of second War of Independence. In the press there have even been embarrassing comparisons to the struggle against Nazism, comparisons that are not only a crude distortion of history, but disgrace the memory of the Jews who were exterminated.
The architect of this unsuccessful campaign has outdone himself: In order to cover up his failures, he delivered a poor man’s pseudo-Churchillian speech, and promised us more “pain, tears and blood.” There really is no limit to shamelessness.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745313.html
Let’s not become confused
Nadav Shragai
“We cannot become confused and allow the world and ourselves, and particularly the Arab citizens of Israel who live among us, to turn things upside down.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745310.html
The casual racism of that “us” pretty much says it all.
Kimba, would you mind if we all come visit you for a while — say, a year or two?
We’ll be quiet, and cook for you, and keep your cat’s litter-box tidy . . .
On a pass the popcorn note, kos and Steve Gilliard post on College Republicans for Lieberman — apparently, HoJo can’t find any Democrats willing to work for him, so he’s hiring the worst of the worst.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot……front.html
(on the graphic kerfluffle, someone mentioned in Steve’s comment thread.)
Cujo at 34 — Oh yeah, that was some snide. I heard about the article from someone else in Pelosi’s office. Laughing their asses off at the Republican finger-pointing to avoid any responsibilty for switching the names back to “french” is an understatement.
It was Jim @ 17 who brought up the Condi quote, which I’ve never heard before. He was quoting me too, hence the confusion. I just don’t want unearned credit. But here’s an interesting AP story from 2004 about her quote and the Middle East.
Jim @
23
Not to mention that Joe is recruiting young REPUBLICANS to work on his campaign and paying their way to do it! While claiming all along to be a Democrat, of course.
What a swell guy.
It’s important to our friend shithot John Laesch ( http://www.john06.com/) that this silliness and incompetence and venality be tied to John’s opponent, Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert, whose constituents can do their NATION a favor by defeating this criminal-enabler.
Duke Cunningham
Tom DeLay
Bob Ney
Jerry Lewis
John Doolittle
John Boehner
Roy Blunt
The GOP leadership team, supervised by SPEAKER Denny.
The Iraq War
NSA Domestic Spying
The Bankruptcy Bill
Immigration Gridlock
The GOP Issues, on the watch of SPEAKER Dennis Hastert.
Go John 2006 Laesch!
Yep HoJo campaign recruting the Yellow Elephant brigade to do his GOTV, so sad…. for someone who says he is a Democrat…. so sad that he cannot get real Democrats work for him…. So sad that he has to pay for them to stay while we donate funds to help TRex to go….. and volunteer our phone minutes….. Lamont campaign has people giving up and donating to help from their hearts and HoJo has to pay them…… hmmmmmm… kind of like defining sex ….. you either pay for it or……
The Greeks had it about right. When Snark becomes Hubris the Gods will punish. I feel sick.
Steve
lotus
You and your firepups friends are welcome to visit me whenever you happen to be passing near Udine in Friuli, but if you do not mind I’ll handle the cooking…
I am a perfect example of the very god tradition about that in my family :P … and of course I have plenty of good cool wine in the cellar !
Here’s a BBC quote, if you’re interested, from Feb 2005. I just googled, it seems pretty widely accepted that she said it:
When the new US secretary of state arrived in France this week, she said it was “time to turn away from the disagreements of the past”.
Her conciliatory tone was a far cry from those days in 2003 when France led European opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Then, Ms Rice – as National Security Adviser – reportedly told President George W Bush to “punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia”
Steve at 44 — and when cryptic gets posted without context, people look at you oddly…
Much obliged, Kimba! We’ll gladly serve as your sous-chefs and dish-washers, how’s that? (As of course we take copious notes on your every culinary move!)
Drop by here any Saturday afternoon (your time-zone) and swap recipes with us, please!
Christy –
As one who often indulges in cryptic obscure references, I feel for Steve. Sad to say, I also understand what he is saying.
Jim @ 33
That’s what is scary.
I’m more worried about having a Secretary of State taken seriously by the people who will be sitting on the other side of diplomatic tables. This one can’t be. I have macabre fantasies about Hugo Chavez or Lula sitting across from her and saying, “What will you do to us if we help Castro? Punish us, like you did France? Ignore us, like you did Germany? Ooooooo, we’re so scared!”
Really? Can you prove that there is a difference between That’s My Bush and TEAM LOSER? Ever see them in the same place at the same time? I don’t think so.
Ok, I will be gathering some of my most sucessful ones and join you here at some time next Saturday.
Now where did I leave the receipt for “coniglio in salmi’” ? … and yes here it is just under the one for “torta pasqualina” …. :)
Here’s something to get your shoulders down from around your ears, folks. Start here and read the next EPU’d few.
Now where did I leave the receipt for “coniglio in salmi’” ? … and yes here it is just under the one for “torta pasqualina” … . :)
You’d be amazed how much a flower can salivate under the right stimulus. Quite the Ph.D. dissertation in that for some botany student, just sayin’ . . .
For anyone wishing they could see, just once, Lieberman followed by The Kiss float, CtBob has a lovely new video up:
http://ctbob.blogspot.com/
Christy at 46- I am odd, however,I just read through the last thread and I felt ill. Sometimes a string of good judgement and good results will lead to error if one is not careful. In my previous life, when I was training the next generation of surgeons, I would tell them overconfidence would bite them in the ass and that they were only as good as the results of their last operation. I just thought Hubris and Gods sounded more educated than “than bite you in the ass”.
Thanks for the chance to explain my odd mind-set.
Steve
Steve at 55 — Okay, gotcha. I clearly need more caffeine…or maybe a nap. *g*
Christy, I want to thank you for the New Blue Bar at the top of all posts, with the Blue America donation link. While the comment buttons — which we’ve had, what? three days?? — are kewl, I imagine the New Blue Bar will be much more useful in the long run.
Thanks for continually improving the FDL experience, from a customer and commenter and community-member who loves all y’all.
weeder and CT Bob RAWK! Joe, … eh, not so much.
Amen to Teddy’s 57 — amenamenamen and amen again in the same place!
omg ct_bob got the float in the frame with RGJoe.
Teddy at 60 — Yeah, CTBob rocks. :)
Oh, and Teddy — thank Jamie for the cool new blue bar. Makes things MUCH easier for everyone, don’t you think? Jamie is a genius!
thank you, Jamie
*kicks foot in dust shyly*
Teddy — wish you were here to make me a good martini…*g*
it’s made and freezing in the glass, Redd. Problem ain’t with where I am, since I’m here with your martini. Now, your location has its advantages, but currently it’s lacking your martini.
Scumps!
There ya go!
Don’t kick that dust, Teddy honey, PASS THAT PITCHER!
heading out into the real world, it’s a beautiful day and clearly I’m accomplishing no work as promised, so Outside, here I come!
catchyall on the flip….
Redd,
Christy Hardin Smith @ 31
Mrs. BC and I drove back to Illinois for her family reunion. We were listening to Majority Report on the way, and someone made reference to Bill O’Liely’s sexual prowess with falafel. She looked at me and said,”You know, they really shouldn’t make stuff like that up.” I said they weren’t — that in his phone-sex call to the woman producer who sued his sorry ass he’d made the reference.
Then she accused me of making shit up. When we got to our hotel, I got out her notebook computer and went to The Smoking Gun website. There I pulled up Andrea What’s-er-name’s affidavit. She read the thing, said, “I feel dirty now. I’m going to take a shower…”
O’Liely. What a putz.
BC
{{{ leaving full shaker for flower }}}
Tee martoonis, please (*hic*)
:-)
…and when Condi called Chirac to ask him to send French troops to Lebanon, he reportedly replied: “Soldiers? Soldiers? Sorry, no soldiers here, just us, cheese eating surrender monkeys.”
‘Ere, Bong!
ahhhh lotus, my enabler
couple blues?
As ever, Bong, as ever.
OT as usual, (sorry)
Of Interest to those of us Firepups here in WA state.
Heck-of-a-Contract
The Washington Senate race just got a whole bunch more interesting for those of us outside the state. Senator Maria Cantwell’s Republican opponent is Mike McGavick who resigned last year as the CEO of SafeCo so he could run against Cantwell. He had a nice pot of money from his days at SafeCo that he was planning to use to help fund his campaign. Well, it looks like that pot of money might have just turned into a big honeypot because it seems that the “golden parachute” was really a “stolen parachute” and SafeCo investors want their money back.
snip
more here.
http://www.pacificviews.org/
Zowie, Busted! So that’s how they do that, huh? Hmmmm . . .
That sound we hear is Big Smiles breaking out all over Cantwell HQ. Well well well, Maria maybe gonna give ol’ Bill Nelson some competition for Luckiest Incumbent of ‘06 … only fair that he face some for something this year.
Where I live, some people were starting to put a thumbs-down even on local place names that were French. Guess they thought we don’t owe the French anything. Forget the Marquis de la Fayette! And while you’re at it, send everything French back to France!
Like maybe the Statue of Liberty? Oh, wait, we didn’t get rid of the statue. Just what she stands for …
One more question: wonder if ol’ Texas-based J.C. Penney will once again call the “Freedom Valance” the “French Valance” in their catalogues? Oh, that’s right. Don’t call it a catalogue! That’s a French word!
I’m actually in favor of the “freedom fries” name. It’s quite handy for determining which of my local restaurants are run by right-wing dickheads so I can avoid spending my money there.
Sorry, but I can’t believe that Nancy Pelosi,
would have a “spokesman” and not a “spokesperson”.
Something is seriously wrong here.
soon it’ll be Speaker Pelosi
Boy, I feel safer already.No more freedom fries, freedom toast. Congress has done nothing for the American people. Everything for big business. Wrestled with the big issues of gay marriage, flag burning, and passed a poison bill for minimum wage. Now the do nothing congress will take the month of August off. Just as the French do.GO NED!
Bustednuckles @ 75
Here’s the permalink for that story:
http://www.pacificviews.org/we…..02116.html
Here’s the Seattle PI’s take on this suit:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/…..ick02.html
The PI notes that the woman filing suit is a member of the family that helped found Safeco, and is being helped by liberal lawyers. Don’t know what all that means, but I figure if it’s OK for Paula Jones to be helped along by conservatives it’s OK by me that this suit is pushed by liberals. Live by the lawsuit, die by the lawsuit.
Subjects of such import from France already who knew a potato could be so glorified-move over Mr. Potato Head your days are numbered…meanwhile back on the ground in Iraq and Lebanon..blood soup is the menu favorite of our unquestioningly patriotic leaders so feverishly protecting the rights of stem cells and the unborn, while killing those who have managed to see the light of day for a brief moment in time.
One of the ironies of the whole thing, is that French Toast, was originally German Toast (cf the first edition of Fannie Farmer), but in the frenzy of WW1 thing like Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage and German Toast became French.
Emster @
1
Haven’t read through all comments so I’ve not noticed if anyone have had this thought yet but, isn’t the change (back) from “Freedom Fries” to “French Fries” an equal snub to Bush and his “Freedom” agenda as the initial name change was a snub to France?
In that vein the name “Freedom Tower” will not stand the test of time, no. “Freedom” has been made a dirty word by Bush.