Juan Cole

gets it wrong on economics. How Juan Cole can say "France has for some time been a capitalist country with a relatively strong economy" is beyond me. France's economy is growing, if that's the word, at about 0.2 percent per year or 0.5 here and the unemployment rate is about 10 percent, 20 to 40 percent in the rioting ghettos. The US economy, which everyone (at least on the left) is bitching about, is growing at about 3.28 percent over the last 5 years. Mr. Cole, who has "long been in love with the place, and the people" seems to be, at least on economic matters, a bit delusional. Maybe he should look up the word "socialism".