French Lives Matter

The death toll is way over 80 now, not quite up to the 130 killed last November but far worse than the January 2015 killing of 11 that had us writing je suis Charlie although we weren't much like and didn't much like Charlie and still don't.

Are we Nice now?  No, but all we talk about is the danger of being shot by one or more of the 200 million or more guns in private hands in the USA.  We've been spared attacks by foreign terrorists on that scale since 2001 when George W was keeping us safe with his "strength."  Obama is weak, of course. We've been told that since the beginning of his presidency. He's weak, and "he will be tested" and "we will be attacked."   Another one of those dire predictions we believe despite their regular failure to come true.

Will we be Nice now or will this one fail to dominate the news with the Cleveland cesspool about to open?  Do French lives matter enough to merit the full mourning, healing and closure seeking news cycle?  Will I be seeing more of those smug posters and posts and cartoons about how hypocritical and racist we are for interfering with a certain publicity campaign I'm tired of talking about? French lives matter - now there I've gone and said it.

But we need to and we certainly will search for someone to blame and Obama is already on the short list. It will be hard to blame lax gun laws in France with its level of gun control that will never be accepted in the US and that this was done with a truck will challenge us to keep the talk entirely about guns, much less "assault" weapons.  Assault truck bans are hard to propose with a straight face.

Will anyone make the case for our current administration's relative success in keeping ISIS attacks to a bare minimum when compared to all those deaths in Europe? Well, I doubt it and this awful story will be hard to fit into the formulaic assault that is our presidential campaign.  Besides there's Pokemon Go.