Winners

There are at least four, starting with France, a winner because Nicolas Sarkozy won the Presidency:

Sarkozy, candidate of the governing Union for a Popular Movement, took 53.4 percent against 46.7 percent for Royal, the Interior Ministry said, with 80 percent of the vote counted.

The president-elect, 52, overcame criticism that he was too divisive and too sympathetic to the U.S., convincing voters that he was best-suited to spur economic growth. Sarkozy, interior minister and finance minister for four years under President Jacques Chirac, promised to cut taxes, reduce the number of civil servants, curb immigration and toughen sentencing.

"The people of France have chosen change," Sarkozy said tonight in a nine-minute address at party headquarters in Paris. "I will restore the value of work, authority, morals, respect, and merit. I'll restore national pride and national identity."

It's fitting that Sarkozy -- whose election slogan was Ensemble Tout Devient Possible,


(which means "Together, everything is possible," not as it might appear, "Let's get together and be deviant") -- is victorious on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, the last politician with a realistic chance of saving Europe from . . . well . . . Europe. The surest sign of "Sarko's" potential: "youths" are rioting throughout France, accompanied by the usual car burnings.

And Sarkozy made the United States a winner. According to a reader of The Corner, "Sarkozy just gave his acceptance speech, in which he uttered the somewhat astounding--and from a political point of view, needless--line: '. . .and let me say to our American friends, they can count on our friendship.'" So much for the meme that George Bush fostered a hostile Europe--the reality is quite different.

The fourth winner? The Buffalo Sabers, who outlasted the New York Rangers -- playing magnificently in the 2nd and 3rd periods -- and now advance to the Eastern Conference Championships against the Ottawa Senators. Hockey, I'm talking playoff hockey.

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TigerHawk says, "It's time to stop the French Jokes." Well, one more: a cartoon, via Sparks from the Anvil: