By November 11, 2005
France is in the news this week, but the country is not exactly on what you would call a roll. Ethnic riots grip Paris and are literally spreading like wildfire throughout the country. It’s been a long time since the French helped us beat George III, or gave us the Statue of Liberty, or provided a tolerant haven for Thomas Jefferson and his slave-girl girlfriend. In fact, today – Nov. 11 – is a grim reminder of World War I and the loss of over a million French lives. There’s not much we can do to help. The U.S. really hasn’t done anything for France since Patton left Paris in 1944, so a charity package of freedom fries from Washington is unlikely. But, on behalf of our troubled friends across the pond, let us be thankful for their colonization of Canada in the 17th century. Today, turn off T.O., bypass the BCS and don’t bother counting Shaq’s kids. The most riveting storyline in sports is the revival of French-Canadian hockey. The French dominance of the National Hockey League is nothing new. Hockey’s all-time aristocracy reads like a fine wine list – Brodeur, Dionne, Lemieux and Roy. The Montreal Canadiens are called “Les Habitants” and have won a Stanley Cup in every decade the NHL has existed – 24 in all. If you think “Oh, Canada!” in English is a great song, listen to it in French – sung by 20,000 fans in Montreal. It’s as inspiring as “La Marseille” from the movie Casablanca. Today, the Canadiens once again are hockey royalty. They have the most points in the Eastern Conference. Not far behind are their quasi-French brethren, the Ottawa Senators. The Habs and Sens rule the East like Louis XIV, the king, and they are as cool as Louis XIV, the rock band. The French have history on their side. Arguably the most dominant franchise in the history of sports, the Canadiens are eager to make their mark on the 21st century with a Cup in 2006. The ghost of Maurice Richard has drifted from the Forum to the Bell Centre – and the “Rocket” is thirsty for blood. The French give us the most exciting players. Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis – the duo who brought the Stanley Cup to Tampa Bay in 2004 – are hockey’s most prolific twosome since Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri. Then there’s Flyers winger Simon Gagne – who shoots pucks like Eric Gagne throws fastballs. The French players know how to win. In the 2004 Cup Finals, St. Louis scored the stunning game-winner in double overtime in Game 6 – his third game-winner of the playoffs. Even in losing, the French are in command. Jean-Sebastien Giguere single-handedly led Anaheim to the 2003 Finals, lost in Game 7, and still won the Conn Smythe Trophy for the playoffs MVP. The French have panache. Legendary Canadiens coach Jacques Demers has just told us he could neither read nor write – yet he won the Stanley Cup and was named Coach of the Year on two occasions. He won the Cup in 1993 by absurdly – but accurately – accusing Marty McSorley of using an illegal stick for the Kings. The French have savoir-faire. Sean Avery, the current John Rocker of the NHL, recently said French-Canadian players can’t back up their tough play. Ian Laperriere of Colorado said, “If Avery’s looking for a French guy who will back it up, I’m his guy.” When Los Angeles came to Denver in October, Laperriere scored twice to humiliate Avery. The French still manage to get the most beautiful women. Stacia Robitaille is the wife of Kings All-Star Luc – the highest scoring left-winger ever. Stacia is also a model, an actress and owner of her own record company. The nickname “Lucky” was never so appropriate. It’s easy to listen to George Bush and hate the French. It’s easy to boycott crepes and mock berets. And granted, it’s appropriate to beg Gerard Depardieu to never be seen nude on the big screen again. This hockey season, however, is under French control. From pea soup kitchens in Quebec to red wine bistros in Montreal, hope for French hockey is on the rise. As hockey fans, all we can do now is relax and enjoy le feu d’artifice. Kyle Sheahen is a Sun Senior Editor. The Ultimate Trip will appear every other Friday this semester. Archived article by Kyle Sheahen
By November 11, 2005
Heavily criticizing the Bush administration’s Middle East policy, pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International, spoke yesterday evening at the Alice H. Cook House to a large group of faculty and students in a lecture entitled “The Political Landscape: The United States and the Middle East.”… “When you stop and weigh [the war] and think in terms of the lives being lost and weigh it against Saddam’s crimes, yes, there might be a rationale, but you’ve got to know where you’re going; we’ve had no plans other than to bomb the hell out of Baghdad, paint targets on our troops – I feel no glory or justification [in this war] … I want to pound some sense into those people,” Zogby said. Zogby examined public opinion trends in the U.S. and Middle East since President George W. Bush’s election in 2000, comparing Bush’s approval ratings to a “bouncing ball,” bouncing high in the air at first, but eventually bouncing lower and lower and falling faster. On 9/11, Zogby said Bush got his first “bounce” of the ball as citizens bonded with leaders and themselves, resulting with Bush obtaining approval ratings as high as 90 percent. Yet only two weeks after the attacks, Zogby noted in a poll that only 50 percent of Americans supported the war on terror if it would last over two years. “[Americans] want the war won, the war over and our troops out of harm’s way … I learned that the US was still very much in the post-Vietnam era,” Zogby said. According to Zogby, Bush’s second “bounce” of the ball occurred when troops invaded Iraq in March of 2003, with his approval rating bouncing up to around 68 percent. His third “bounce” occurred with the capture of Saddam Hussein in December of 2003, with his rating going up to around 55 percent. “But like this ball, [Bush’s] surges were smaller each time and lasted shorter,” Zogby said. Zogby also examined the Democratic campaign for president in 2004, starting with the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2003. Zogby noticed as the campaign went on that early frontrunner Governor Howard Dean lost more and more points to Senators John Kerry and John Edwards. “When we first polled the voters in the caucuses, most voters said they wanted a candidate that said what they believed in. But after [Saddam’s] capture, 84 percent of them said they wanted somebody who could defeat George W. Bush,” Zogby said. Zogby called the 2004 presidential election an “anomaly,” noting that despite 51 percent of Americans giving Bush a negative job rating, and 55 percent saying the country was going in the wrong direction, Bush was able to grab 60 million votes and win 51 percent of the electorate. Zogby blamed the outcome on John Kerry’s inability to connect with the five percent of undecided voters. “John Kerry’s poll numbers were like a flat line on an EKG – always hovering around 48 percent. You get the bare minimum and nothing more. That’s what you get when you’re not George Bush. Kerry did not do enough to capture those undecided voters,” he said. Zogby then moved to the topic of Middle Eastern attitudes and beliefs, harshly criticizing the government for its lack of communication in this area. He claimed that a culture of “betrayal and humiliation” permeates the area. “[Bush] said ‘they hate us for our freedom and democracy, they hate us for our values.’ With all my experience with the Middle Eastern world, I find this very hard to believe,” he said. Zogby cited polls taken in 2000 that showed a majority of Arabs held favorable views on American culture and values. But in a poll taken in the build-up to war, 89 percent of Arabs held unfavorable views towards the U.S. “People don’t like being associated with an Axis of Evil – when they hear this, nationalism triumphs. In one fell swoop, we alienated most of the Middle Eastern world,” Zogby said. Zogby severely condemned U.S. policy, claiming it is undoing any goodwill Arabs hold towards the US. He called attempts to reach out to the Muslim world “ham-handed.” “We are selling our values like Uncle Ben’s Rice – Arabs are so easy to read, but we’re not communicating at all – Good police work will find the terrorists; you breed more terror by shutting off people,” he said. Zogby claimed that Arabs held negative opinions of Bush due to his bonding with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the intense lead-up to war, and the Abu Ghraib scandal. “We have no idea how devastating [the Abu Ghraib scandal] was. To many Arabs, we train our troops on how best to humiliate them,” he said. Zogby held yet more criticism for the Bush administration during a question period following his lecture, painting a dark picture for postwar Iraq, and saying that the United States’ exit strategy must be to leave immediately. political capital” to appeal to the center. He also predicted a “rendering apart” of the Republican base as the Christian right battled against other conservative intellectuals. “What darkens things is the Christian right. They’re a contradiction to what the conservative ideology has always been about; they’re trying to impose their value system on everybody else and utilize the government to do so. They’re very similar to Wahhabism is this way,” he said, speaking of the fundamentalist Islamic movement. Zogby also claimed that the word “liberal” has become dirty and “bankrupt of new ideas.” Zogby was pessimistic of the future situation in the Middle East, saying that the next president would be likely to continue to hold a presence in the Middle East. “We’ve managed to piss off the entire rest of the world,” he said. Zogby’s speech was well-received among students. “He had some very insightful comments. I think he gave students a more global perspective of the changing Middle East,” Rahul Shah ’08 said. Ahmed Mousa ’06, co-president of the Arab Students Association, considered the speech a rousing success. “John Zogby is the perfect example of who we try to bring; not only because he is a Lebanese-American, but because he is a prime pollster and at the center of a lot of issues. His talk was excellent,” Mousa said. Called the “prince of pollsters,” Zogby is a noted pollster who has correctly predicted the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections as well as elections in Canada and Mexico, and has polled in over 62 countries. He holds degrees in history from Le Moyne College and Syracuse University. He is listed with Leading Authorities and the Capitol Speakers Bureau in Washington, D.C. Although Zogby has appeared on many news stations and newspapers, including NBC, ABC, Fox News, and Gannett News Service, he still claims the highpoint of his life was an October 2004 appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Sponsored by the Alice H. Cook House, the Arab Students Association, and the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Archived article by William CohenSun Staff Writer