CNN

SHOW: CNN CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT 20:00

February 11, 2003 Tuesday

Transcript # 021100CN.V92

SECTION: News; International

LENGTH: 8061 words

HEADLINE: Is bin Laden Tape Warning of New Attack?; Clara Harris Trial Nears End

GUESTS: Lillian Smith, John Hullsman, Justin Vaisse, Mary Hart

BYLINE: Connie Chung, David Ensor, Peter Bergen, Kelly Arena, Art Harris, Bruce Burkhardt, Thelma Gutierrez

[...]

CHUNG: Still ahead, what could be funny about efforts to get the French to support a U.S. invasion of Iraq? If you ask the comedians, it's France itself. But is America's oldest ally getting a raw deal? Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead -- the nominees are -- who are the front runners in this year's Oscar race? "Entertainment Tonight's" Mary Hart handicaps the field. CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHUNG: Despite President Bush's disappointment, some key NATO allies and powerful members of the U.N. continue to oppose his plans to invade Iraq. The U.S. and France are drafting different policy papers for the United Nations. France is not alone in opposing the U.S. drive to declare inspections pointless and move to military action. But as CNN's Bruce Burkhardt reports, the tension with France goes beyond diplomatic circles all the way to late night comedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LETTERMAN, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Yes, dogs from all over the world are participating in the Kennel Club show, except for the French poodles and the German shepherds. They are refusing to participate. They don't want any part of it.

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): David Letterman has gotten in his shots, so has Donald Rumsfeld.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe.

BURKHARDT: Be it a comedian or a defense secretary, liberal or conservative, few things bring us together like the French.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: France, Germany and Belgium -- that troika of people who just don't get it.

BURKHARDT: The Germans and the Belgians, sure many Americans are irritated with them for this latest NATO disagreement. But the French, perhaps the best material is saved for France.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: France is the one country who is involved in this whole Iraq deal only for the oil. Maybe a little bit of envy, maybe oily envy.

BURKHARDT (on camera): The French know how to get under our skin, and we know how to get under theirs. There are even Web sites devoted to anti-French jokes. What do you call 100,000 Frenchman with their hands up? The army. Well, that's a joke, yeah. But it does get to the heart of what bugs many Americans about those Beaujolais- sipping, Jerry Lewis watching, frog-legged eating French.

Yesterday's New York Post says it all. "White crosses on French soil, a reminder that were it not for American sacrifices in two world wars, the French might be speaking German. Well, in fairness, it's worth pointing out that we all might be saying secretary instead of secretary were it not for a little French help during the American revolution. But in this century, the French, in the view of many, have stuck their head in the sand.

One huge American ideal is the notion of the stand-up guy, and the French critical moments are perceived to be sitting down, often at the at United Nations.

(voice-over): Saturday Night Live had some fun with that idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My government would like to propose the following -- that we adjourn this special session of the Security Council and all go to lunch at an extremely expensive restaurant with the U.N. picking up the tab.

BURKHARDT: The French and the Americans are like a brother and sister in the back seat on a long family road trip, poking and needling each other. But in the end, they are family. And, though, this latest episode has a lot more import than a back seat spat, the French people and Americans are likely to be bashing each other for generations to come.

Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHUNG: But does it have to be that way between the U.S. and France, America's oldest ally? Can't we all just get along? Well, tonight, we're going to ask Justin Vaisse who is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and also, in Washington, John Hulsman, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation focusing on European affairs. John Hulsman, don't you think the French just deserve this bashing?

JOHN HULSMAN, RESEARCH FELLOW, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, I think there are a couple of things at work here. I mean, for many, many years, those of us who read French newspapers were desperate not to have them translated into English because the bashing from the other side of the Atlantic, I think, far exceeded what went on in the United States. But, recently, I think --

CHUNG: Well, it's politically correct to be anti-American in France, isn't it?

HULSMAN: I think to some extent it is. But I think the United States' patience level has kind of run thin. And I think that is for three really basic reasons. One, I think Americans really see the French as having delusions of grandeur. They speak as though they are a global power, when they don't have the political, economic and cultural wherewithal to back up that.

Secondly, I think Americans feel that they're kind of hypocritical. The French government certainly in a sense. They talk about international law when trying to constrain America through the U.N. process over Iraq, but until recently didn't care a whole lot what the U.N. said about their adventures in Africa. And then, lastly, I think there is a sense of moral relativism or kind of historical forgetfulness. You hear in interviews in France things like, well, I mean, we don't believe the American evidence. They could have manufactured that.

CHUNG: Justin Vaisse, if you're going to be France and you're going to bash Americans, and you're going to be anti-American, shouldn't you expect criticism from Americans?

JUSTIN VAISSE, VISITING FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Yes, of course. But, you know, the irony in all this is that I have been fighting anti-Americanism in my own country for a long time, to explain American, and all that. And, unfortunately, what I witnessed here is a kind of symmetric evolution and debate -- that is, you know, French bashing. And, you know, when you replace argument and the trading of serious argument and all that by epithet and insults, you know, that is just the debate that gets lower in terms of standards. And so everybody has to lose at that game.

CHUNG: Sure.

John Hulsman, isn't it true, though, the more you bash the French, the more they will believe that they are correct?

HULSMAN: I think there is kind of a perversity on both sides, that, if you attack them, that that is signification that they are correct.

And I think it's important, again, to play the arguments. But, behind the arguments, you have to look at interests. I think it is legitimate for Americans to say, France has 4 billion or so dollars worth of interest in Iraq and is that coloring their position, because national interests are legitimate? I think that's a policy argument that needs to be made.

CHUNG: Justin Vaisse , doesn't President Bush sort of crystallize everything that the French hate about America?

VAISSE: I don't think so. He certainly crystallizes a number of features that Europeans don't like about America. That is true. But it's not only a personal problem here.

What is at stake is also the manner in which the Bush administration has been presenting its foreign policy program since it took office in this very unilateral kind of way, saying, OK, we do that for our own national interests and we don't care about the rest of the world. And I think, what you're witnessing here on the part of France and Germany, but, also that 80 percent of European opinion, whether they come from Britain or some place else, is just a kind of payback for this unilateral talk.

CHUNG: John Hulsman, why don't the Americans bash the Germans or the Russians? Why is it all focused on France?

HULSMAN: I think there's fatigue in the sense that, on a number of issues over the last 10 years, be they economic, like the common agricultural policy, or the death penalty, or the axis of evil, or the epithets coming out of France that President Bush is a cowboy, a stupid one at that, is trigger-happy, I think, at a certain point, the Americans are saying: Look, we are throwing our hands up. We don't believe that the French are judging these things on its merits.

And that's the danger in the relationship at the moment. France has always been a lightning rod for criticism of the United States. And that's because France has really taken it upon itself to say that: We're this other pole of power, that we can come along, but, in effect, be a loyal opposition in the alliance.

And after a while, that gets very tiring to hear to anybody's ears.

CHUNG: Justin Vaisse, final question, bottom line, in 10 seconds, if the United States does go to war with Iraq, do you think France is going to support the U.S.?

VAISSE: It depends how on it goes.

If it goes with the U.N. Security Council, as everybody, including the 10 Europeans that John were referring to inside this framework, this international framework, yes, France will definitely join and support the Bush administration. If it just is a unilateral intervention, I think it will not join.

CHUNG: All right, Justin Vaisse and John Hulsman, I thank you both for joining us.

VAISSE: Thanks.

HULSMAN: Pleasure.