The Vile Pin at work

I’m on PJ duty again today and another great story popped up, this one from France via one of my favorite blogs – L’Ombre de l’Olivier. Apparently our good friends de Villepin and Chirac (by extension) have been up to some not unexpected dirty tricks to tarnish rival Nicolas Sarkozy – actually to make Sarko seem like a criminal. This is the kind of nasty corruption game we don’t even begin to play and (if you can make your way through its spy novel ins and outs) easily outdistances our own scandals. The French are, of course, more blasé (their word, after all) about these things, but not, ultimately, for their own good. Check out the links at the PJ post – amusing reading now that le Carré has gone off the deep end.

UPDATE: Meandering around the L’Ombre de l’Olivier for this post, I noticed another entry with photos of a 20-30 century old olive tree. Worth a look.

MORE: Fausta had an extensive post on this scandal – “The Clearstream Affair”- on Friday.