“This characteristically Sarkozist lack of restraint makes Carla Bruni a neat encapsulation of his presidency: eye-catching, over-compensatory and more than a little lacking in taste,” wrote Tony Judt, Erich Maria Remarque professor of European Studies at N.Y.U., in an email. “Closer, in other words, to Lady Di than to Jackie Kennedy—but Diana was far too canny to take her clothes off.
“The short-run plus for Sarkozy is that the disappointment and disdain he was beginning to arouse in the French public will (for a while) be replaced with a sort of prurient envy (by both sexes): to paraphrase Marie Antoinette, ‘Let them eat cheesecake…,’” wrote Mr. Judt.
This is a power union, but not in the sense that we think about it in America, where our high-profile marriages seem more like mergers than matches. These two may be reaching their individual goals, but they’re also having sex at night. And probably during the day.
Will America ever have a first lady who says “sex” instead of “cheese” when she’s having a photo taken? It doesn’t seem likely.
But we can dream, yes? Please Carla, come visit!
