Au pays des aveugles les borgnes sont rois

Carpeicthus reminds those brave GI’s like Tom DeLay (who apparently waded ashore at Normandy when he was 2) of some American history. It’s true that France might be speaking German if not for America (although I don’t think even the Nazis could have accomplished that) but even more importantly,

Without the French, we’d be eating crumpets right now.

Yes, as embarrassing as it is, without those cheese-eating, chain-smoking, sex-having bastards the United States of America wouldn’t even exist.

On August 14, 1781 Washington and the French general Rochambeau received word from Comte de Grasse, the admiral of the French fleet, that he would be arriving off the coast of Virginia in mid-September. De Grasse would remain in the Chesapeake area for a month, until the expected seasonal heavy weather forced him south again.

Here was an opportunity to trap Cornwallis in Virginia, but to do so meant that not one, but two armies—one speaking English, one French—would have to travel 500 miles over local roads in a coordinated assault with a navy that was, at the time de Grasse’s letter arrived, sailing somewhere in the Atlantic.

So, Tom, do you sing “God Save the Queen?” De rien, motha-fuckah.

Update: Via Ampersand and Atrios, a great new blog, VeryVery Happy gives another little history lesson about those hapless French cowards in WWII. The day that Tom and Denny face down the 2nd SS Panzer Division outside their gated community in Sugarland, Texas with a couple of 22 rifles, then maybe they’ll be in a position to criticize. ‘Course, as we all know, Tom wasn’t even allowed to join the service during Viet Nam because all the Blacks and Mezkins stole the good combat slots.