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Monday, March 03, 2003

Steve Barrar is a Pennsylvania state representative and a very silly man. Barrar, a Republican from Delaware and Chester counties, wants the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to prohibit state stores from carrying and selling French wines.

We should do this, he says, "in protest of French President Jacques Chirac's refusal to support the United States and its military actions in Iraq."

No, we shouldn't.

It's true that American GIs -- my father and uncles among them -- joined with Brits and Canadians to liberate Western Europe in World War II. But the way I always heard it, this meant we freed the people. The right to disagree was one of the gifts we brought them, along with nylons and candy bars.

We say the French are ingrates, that they have forgotten all we've done for them, but maybe we have, too.

Were it not for French help against the British during the American Revolution, we'd all be speaking English right now. You know what I'm saying?

Look, it's true these people can be pains in the derrieres, and they also can exhibit an effete snobbery against anything un-French. Six years ago, my wife and I were dining with another Pittsburgh couple in a nice little restaurant in Paris, when the waiter began making fun of one of our orders -- to the delight of the natives dining at nearby tables. I found myself muttering under my breath, "You weren't so sorry to see us Americans back in '44."

But, to be fair, that was our lone bad experience. So I'm not about to hold a little thing like them not wanting us to bomb Baghdad against the entire nation.

And call me old-fashioned -- or at least make me one -- but the LCB hardly seems the right place to conduct foreign policy. Barrar's proposal amounts to nothing more than phony sacrifice and pseudo-commitment.

I have no personal stake in this. For my money, California's Napa Valley offers better deals on wine. I confess I have some cognac somewhere in the cupboard, but it began aging before Saddam Hussein took power, so it's possible even Barrar would let that slide.

Most Pennsylvanians already boycott French wine in this way, without even thinking about it. The East Ohio Street state store that I frequent may not be the best place for a survey, but I'd bet a round of drinks that Pennsylvania sells more Wild Irish Rose than Beaujolais. Even those of us who prefer corks to caps buy far more California product than French -- despite those tofu-eaters taking Barry Bonds from us.

Pennsylvania, with one of the last government-held wine-and-spirits monopolies in America, must be the largest buyer of wine in America now that Orson Welles is dead. But its current system at least allows individual citizens to make their own choices. Barrar doesn't trust us with that.

At the end of the day, France is a free nation and so are we. If we want to damage our real and common enemy, we would be wiser to consider stemming our consumption of oil -- but then that would involve real sacrifice.

These silly skirmishes only divert us from the serious task of disarming Iraq in accordance with the United Nations agreement. France believes we can do that without a war. Our leaders do not. If we go to war, the United States won't need the French -- until it's over.

Then America will be occupying an Islamic land. If you don't think that will inflame the people who hate us, you haven't been paying attention. We will need allies more than ever. Fighting over the wine won't make us any stronger.