[lbo-talk] Freedom fries congressman sez: Je regrette

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed May 25 11:21:52 PDT 2005


URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1491567,00.html

Wednesday May 25, 2005

The Guardian

French fries protester regrets war jibe

Jamie Wilson in Washington

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the

sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the

invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to

change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against

the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was

also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol

Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no

justification".

Mr Jones, who in March 2003 circulated a letter demanding that the

three cafeterias in the House of Representatives' office buildings ban

the word french from menus, said it was meant as a "light-hearted

gesture".

But the name change, still in force, made headlines around the world,

both for what it said about US-French relations and its pettiness.

Now Mr Jones appears to agree. Asked by a reporter for the North

Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr

Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and

a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most

vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his

office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this

administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some

instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the

newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005



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