The frog in Sarko’s bread-and-milk

The always-excellent Arthur Goldhammer on Nicolas Sarkozy’s latest appearance:

Sarkozy had another one of his marathon chats with les tribunes du peuple, or what passes for such in the media age: telejournalists. It was an odd performance. The Élysée doesn’t really suit its current incumbent. Its rococo excess makes a strange contrast with his blunt language. He cannot bring himself to sit up straight, despite chairs that would seem to require it. He slouches and squirms, and one keeps expecting to hear the voice of an admonishing parent: “Sit up straight, Nicolas!” His tie was not knotted comme il faut, leaving him looking slightly bedraggled, despite the dazzling white shirt (wrong for television), expensive if rather somber suit, and bling-bling timepiece (I think he may have bought the Breitling he was seen ogling in the pages of Yasmina Reza’s book). Formality and tradition cannot repress his pugnacity.

It’s not just that he shares a name with the protagonist in The Lumber Room that makes me think of the French President as the precocious, impossible, delightful, whipper-snapper in Saki’s classic