Behavioral-Thought experiment: Try thinking about the reasons the participants might give about who gains the most from this meeting. Now, try not laughing.

Kerry commits to purchasing $15 million of French wine for the 2008 Democrat convention and Chirac commits to turn back the Charles De Gaulle from its passage to Indonesia for subsequent deployment in the Med. largely because it won't make it to Indonesia before March on one bent prop anyway.

Kerry seems to be attempting to tweak the administration as much as possible, without actually going to see one of the remaining "Axis of Evil" leaders. I would assume that means either a visit to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or a soujourn to meet the Fedeliester down in Havanna are upcoming in the next few months.

Has Kerry set foot in the Senate chamber this year? Will he spend less time in the capitol this year tthan he did in Viet Nam?

Paris is horrible in January. Wet, cold, windy, dark. Only a real dork would choose to go there voluntarily this time of year. Maybe, Te-ray-za cut his allowance, so he has to go off-season.

Chirac has been around forever. He was PM in the mid 1970s. During his career, he has been pro-American, anti-American, religiously arch-Catholic, militantly secularist, anti-immigrant, pro-immigrant, anti-Communist, pro-Soviet, free market oriented, statist. The only consistent thread in his career is that he has always looked to line his own pockets with an intensity that would shock Edwin Edwards. His criminality is so extreme and so obvious it would offend Argentine politicians. The only thing keeping him out of the hoosegow is his immunity as President de la Republique.

Kerry is merely trying to seem relevant. But getting to see Chirac at this stage is like a defeated fighter for a championship showing up on ESPN Friday Night Fights. You have to be desperate to re-establish yourself, because the next lower step is county fairs.