Schadenfreude

Finally, a trial worth watching:

PARIS Senior allies of President Jacques Chirac and a member of Paris’s Olympic bid committee are among 47 defendants accused of rigging public works contracts for kickbacks in a major political corruption trial opening Monday in France.

The trial, expected to run through July, implicates four former ministers and spotlights one of several party funding scandals that have come to light from Chirac’s tenure as Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995.

Already I’m feeling all tingly inside.

More seriously, Chirac’s 18 year tenure just absolutely smacks of a theme I’ve been pounding on lately: Entrenched majorities make for bad government.

Even more seriously, hey, they’re all like French and stuff.