French Freedom French Fries Served On Capitol Hill

The Republicans are switching it back. From the official LP blog and the Washington Times:

The fries on Capitol Hill are French again. So is the breakfast toast in the congressional cafeterias, with both fries and toast having been liberated from the appellation “freedom.” Three years after House Republicans trumpeted the new names to get back at the French for snubbing the coalition of the willing in Iraq, congressmen don’t even want to talk about french fries, which are actually native to Belgium, and toast.

And so ends one of the most absurd aspects of American politics for the past few years.

posted Aug 5th, 2006 by Stuart Richards
  • http://swmolibertarianparty.blogspot.com The Libertarian Guy

    Absurd, perhaps… but the French need an occasional bitch-slap, just for being so… French.

  • Stuart Richards

    I’d say that never winning a single major war (even against yourself) qualifies as an occasional bitchslap.

  • michelleshinghal

    What have you against the French? Did your Daddy teach you to blindly label an ethnic group for fun? The French are like Americans. Some bad, some really bad, and some libertarian. (OK, had to poke a little fun too.)

  • Stuart Richards

    There’s only two things in this world that I hate. People who judge others based on their ethnicity, and the French.

  • Russell W. Behne

    Wow. That’s amazing. Go to France and you won’t find `French’ fries or `French’ toast. That’s because both were introduced to America by German immigrants, they are recipies from the 1800′s. Today, you can still order fried potatoes in Germany, and I’ve never found the Frenchman who ever heard of `French’ toast. They were first introduced in America as `German fried potatos’, but that got shortened to `German fries’. (The same happened with German toast.)
    Then Wilson and the Federal Reserve got America involved in the first world war, and suddenly everything German was very unpopular, and everything French was in vogue – but people didn’t want to give up eating their German fries or toast, so they renamed them to French fries and French Toast! It’s been that way ever since.
    If everyone is ok with restoring `Freedom’ fries to it’s French psuedonoym, why don’t we go all the way and restore the original names to them? Let’s call them what they really are: German fries and German toast.

  • Jabjabs

    Can’t everybody do like us australians and the British and just call them chips? It’s much easier that way.

  • http://www.malnurturedsnay.net Malnurtured Snay

    What an amazingly embarassing chapter this has been. “Freedom Fries” my ass — I even understand some folks boycotted “French’s Mustard”, thinking it was made by France (as opposed to being made by a family whose last name was “French”). The politicians who were behind that should be grateful their constituency has a sense of humor.

  • Burt

    France was one of the few countries to refuse to ratify the EU Constitution. That puts them a leg up on most countries in Europe in my book.

  • http://www.titaniumgirl.blogspot.com elle

    The “freedom fries” edict was so silly that it had the exact opposite effect on me – I went out of my way to start buying French products. I figured if the neocons can’t stand the French the French must be doing something right! Viva La France!

  • Sandra Kallander

    Did you know: in France the stereotype is that men are emotional and women are logical? Who wouldn’t like a country full of logical women?

  • http://warcriminal.freeservers.com Sol

    >but the French need an occasional bitch-slap

    Yeah, and renaming french fries freedom fries sure taught those French a lesson just like those idiots pouring French champagne in the gutters. Makes your proud to be Mercan (as Bushie says).

  • http://mkfreeberg.blogspot.com Morgan K Freeberg

    If memory serves, Saddam Hussein was still President of Iraq the first time French Fries were called Freedom Fries.

    Now, he’s not. The meme has served its purpose, it seems. To those who say Iraq liberation was the right thing to do but we should have waited for yet-another U.N. resolution…well, go ask your local Freedom-Man. Veto power and all that.

    By the way, this French antipathy toward things military/combative/invasive/defensive, is a relatively new thing. Napoleon was a conqueror. And Charles Martel kicked ass. It’s not an ethnic thing, it’s an attitudinal thing. But are the French deserving of ridicule over it? Absolutely. They’d deserve the ridicule even if the effects of the attitude were confined to them…which, of course, they aren’t.

  • IanC

    Not to mention that they just plain smell. As a culture the french tend to bathe but once a week — and change their clothing when they bathe.

    That’s from personal exposure to french exchange students (of a postgraduate level).

  • Devious David

    Sandra, that’s because Frenchmen are pansies. Anyone ever shake hands with a Frenchman?

  • http://www.pnar.org Tom Blanton

    What’s the deal with the French bashing? Latent homosexuality? I like french fries even if they are German. French wine is good and French babes are hot, even if they don’t shave their legs – plus old Lafayette helped us nail Cornwallis. I suspect the bashing is because the French were right – about Vietnam and Iraq. The French also gave us Bastiat – he was libertarian before it was cool.

    Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) coined the term “freedom fries” back when he supported the war. In May 2005, he voted for an amendment calling for exiting Iraq ASAP – this was before the LP IES.

    Now, Gonzales is lobbying Congress to exempt Americans (Bush) from the US War Crimes Act – a bill introduced by Jones in 1996.

    What goes around comes around, so give the French a break.

    I’ll have a large order of fries, please.

  • http://www.LibertyForAmerica.NET George Phillies

    The French worked out that the war was a bad idea. We did not. As I said in my speech in Manchester NH on August 5:

    “Our national debt is increasing at a half a trillion dollars per year. Congress debated flag burning.

    Income of nonsupervisory workers is stagnant. Congress debated gay marriage.

    The trade deficit is approaching eight hundred billion dollars a year. Congress renamed French fries. And just yesterday they renamed them again.”

    The prepared text of my speech is on my web site.