FROM COURTIER TO CASTRATI:

Villepin's desperate denials (Charles Bremner, 5/04/06, Times of London)

Dominique de Villepin seems to have forgotten that rule of life for courtiers in the ancien régime: le ridicule tue, nothing finishes you faster than making a fool of yourself.

The Prime Minister's indignant and eloquent denials of malfeasance over the Clearstream affair are making him look very foolish. He has been at it again today, dismissing as nonsense the latest devastating judicial leak published by Le Monde. President Chirac is determined to keep de Villepin in the job, but some of the Elysée courtiers now believe that the aristocrat-Prime Minister has incurred too much ridicule and may soon have to be banished. Today's episode also sheds intriguing light on a mystery about what President Chirac gets up to in Japan, but first....

According to the latest leak, de Villepin did indeed instruct General Philippe Rondot, a senior intelligence official, in January 2004, to investigate claims that Nicolas Sarkozy, his rival, held illicit funds in an Italian bank. De Villepin forced two senior ministers to flank him throughout an embarrassing hour-long news conference this morning as he thrashed around explaining his version of the now famous 2004 meeting. The performance was chilling for the parliamentarians of Chirac's UMP party who know that they will pay the price for the sulphur and skullduggery that is coming to light.

One of de Villepin's gems was a claim that he had decided to devote his life to selfless service of the state -- at the age of seven. His subsequent three decades as an impartial haut fonctionnaire, he said, is a guarantee of his honesty when he denies that he had ever tried smear Sarkozy, who is Interior Minister and UMP leader. In other words, as a premier appointed from the nobility of la fonction publique, Villepin believes that he is above politics and serves a higher cause.

The fall of de Villepin is a moment to be savored.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 4, 2006 11:21 PM