I don’t follow professional sports. These days, teams are commercial confections, temporary associations of convenience: granfalloons. There hasn’t been any point in rooting for the one rather than the other since the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn.
The World Cup is different, in that (unlike the “World” Series of baseball) it really does take in the whole world, and the national teams do (for most countries) actually reflect the nation in substantive ways. Moreover, whatever great events are playing out on the world stage hover in the background above the pitch.
Nor do I follow the police blotter. But occasionally a case comes along with international and diplomatic reverberations worthy of note.
Such is l’affaire DSK. Looming behind the disputed particulars of this individual case, are the polarities of France and the US: France, that traditionally winks at or hushes up the pecadilloes of powerful politicians (sexual, to be sure, but sometimes even financial); and America, land of the Puritan bluenose, like the pack of adulterers who bayed for Clinton’s blood.
The tabloids have been playing the anti-Frenchmen card for all it’s worth, in a way that, if directed against blacks or Jews, would be considered beyond the pale -- indeed, actionable. Disgraceful front pages of the NY Post and the NY Daily News have been widely circulated on the Web in France. Our ally of the Revolution and in both World Wars, is now considered fair game for cheap shots and low blows.
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Little noticed in all the tut-tutting is the fact that the judicial treatment of the accused has been extraordinarily harsh. At first, bail was denied, allusion being made to the lack of a firm extradition treaty with France. The point is valid as far as it goes, but that is not very far, for neither do we have such treaties with Israel, or Namibia, nor a number of other countries. And high-profile malefactors have indeed skedaddled to such places:
Thus, in practice, a Frenchman represents no greater flight risk than any other nationality; harping on the prospect of flight and non-extradition was basically payback for Roman Polanski.
Later, he was released, on terms that raised few eyebrows, but which, considered neutrally, simply astonish. A million dollars bail; an additional five millions dollars bond; passport seized; electronic monitoring; and obliged to hire guards to confine him at his own expense.
How do such figures stack up with those for other defendents? Remember, so far as the courts are concerned, this is a first offense. A brief search failed to turn up stats for New York City, but the Bail Schedule for Los Angeles is readily available. (It wasn’t clear whether these figures reflect the first-offense aspect or not.) The closest thing I could find to what DSK is charged with was:
Oral copulation,
If in concert with force or fear upon a victim under age 14 ......................................$250,000
(Without the aggravating circumstance of “under age 14”, presumably the bail would be lower.) For an ordinary murder, presumptive bail is a million bucks. In other words, DSK is being treated more harshly than if he had actually bumped her off.
Clearly, the New York judiciary, in concert with the tabloid press, has decided to throw the book at him. Well, fine; only, you’re supposed to do that after the guy’s convicted. But in the meantime they are tossing red meat to two vocal constituencies, feminists and France-bashers.
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The sordid perp walk has caused much indignation in France, though also some marveling that even the mighty do not escape the public degradation imposed on the rankest of professional criminals. Tough, but even-handed? Perhaps.
Yet, to take examples quite at random, just what happens at the moment to be on the front page of this morning’s LA Times:
(1) An arrest has finally been made in the the savage beating at Dodger Stadium -- another high-profile crime-- but we are not offered a photo nor even the name of the suspect.
(2) In Torrance, California, the police department maintains a publically-available map giving the approximate location of crime scenes, for all crimes except rape and shoplifting, these being deemed “confidential”. (One can speculate as to the politics behind this.)
Now, if any case can be described as sensitive, it is this one. The consequences of thus publically pillorying DSK include throwing the IMF into a tailspin at the time of the worst European financial crisis since the Great Depression, and knocking the (by some estimates) prospective front-runner out of the French Presidential race. Our own President has been patiently trying to mend relations with a country that the Bushites badmouthed with glee, and now this.
Furthermore, in cases of this sort, just occasionally the charges turn out to be exaggerated just a tad. (Examples here and here.) Should that prove to be the case here -- or worse, should the matter turn out to have been a put-up job, as a majority of those polled in France said they believed (probably wrongly, but the point is, the diplomacy of the thing) -- then the New York courts, and its gutter press, will have been complicit in a very serious sabotage of French social and political life. In view of all this, they might at least have let the guy wear a bag over his head.
I'm betting in the end the guy was not merely the victim of a an elaborate set-up, but every point you make is still an important corrective to the treatment he has gotten. Just because he's obscenely wealthy does not mean he should pay or suffer more within our judicial system.
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