Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

Hat tip to NealeNews, this from the Yahoo news service:

France's media council has sharply reprimanded a private television channel for satirizing Pope Benedict as "Adolf II" and saying he blessed Catholics "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Third Reich."

It's a cheap shot, and an obvious one, and moreover, it resonates with no one who matters:

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, also issued a protest against the broadcast that mentioned Benedict's short wartime membership in the Hitler Youth organization, which he has said he was forced to join.

I guess they were playing to the new-Nazi audience, maybe?

So a satirical program makes an unfunny joke in poor taste about a young boy in Nazi Germany. What gets me is the hammer coming down hard on them from the French government:

The Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) warned Canal Plus that it faced stiff monetary fines if it again violated a rule to "respect the different political, cultural and religious sensitivities of the public," a CSA spokesman said on Wednesday. [emphasis added]

If they do it again?

Did I say a hammer? More like a nerf bat.

Actually, I wonder if maybe the French authorities are a bit sensitive when it comes to slamming someone for making cheap Nazi jokes. They might turn around and mention those very expensive jokes the French played on the rest of the world over 60 years ago: Henri Petain, Paul Reynaud, Pierre Laval, Maxime Weygand, Joseph Darnand, Philippe Henriot, and the rest of those whacky nuts of the Vichy Regime.

Come on now, let's hear a joke. Let's make light of how France folded like a cheap suit as soon the Germans made a face at them. Let's all have a big old belly laugh when we think about how the French left Britain and her Commonwealth allies high and dry and standing alone against the most evil regime in history. Let's all have a chuckle when we think about how enthusiastically the Vichy regime and their Milice secret police rounded up resistors and Jews and anyone else their German masters wanted rounded up.

Come on now, I'm waiting. Make me laugh.

I guess I missed what makes pointing out how a young boy in war-torn Germany being compelled to join the Hitler Youth is funny, but why the willing French collaboration with real grown-up Nazis is a sensitive issue.

I guess my crass English sense of humour is not as sophisticated as the French. I think "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was pretty funny.

C'est dommage.