Is it just me or is the right wing response to the election crisis in Ukraine mildly amusing? I can understand the impulse to support a pro-American candidate, but given that the charges of fraud are primarily based on exit polls, I am puzzled at the sudden burst of faith in exit polling, so soon after Kerry-leaning polls on election day were dismissed by our conservative friends as being in error.

Is it just me or is the right wing response to the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire simply sick? There seems to be an obsession with allegations of French misconduct, a gloating recitations of charges that French forces fired into a crowd, followed by a bemoaning of the international double standard applied to U.S. troops in Iraq. Of course, such incidents have happened countless numbers of times in Iraq (U.S. forces attacked, fire back, unintentionally kill civilians in response). Its treated more leniently in this case because French troops are in the Cote d'Ivoire on a UN sactioned peacekeeping mission, at the invitation of both the government and the rebels (see here), so the comparison to Iraq doesn't hold water. There is something deeply wrong with this grotesque anti-French frenzy.