Strauss Kahn Cook!

So it seems that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, erstwhile head of the International Monetary Fund, is being given, at least for now, the Bernie Madoff treatment – i.e., held under “house arrest” in a house that is worth more than most African countries. In other words, he is now subject, just like a million other chumps, to the slow grind of justice in the Big Apple, and unless someone can dream up some way of springing him it's going to be a long, hot summer. But the question, as usual, is “why?” -- simply because someone of that stature caught with his pants down anywhere on the globe is typically provided a pat on the back and a friendly chuckle by the local gendarmes, and then spirited away on the next plane out of town. And the alleged victim is paid, threatened, or conveniently disappears. And don't tell me this hasn't happened countless times in New York City! Let's remember that New York is the home of the United Nations, probably the largest single collection of degenerates on the planet. So what happens in New York stays in New York – except in this case. Clearly the Teflon coating that all international power players enjoy peeled off at some point, and therein lies the intrigue. DSK – as I'll call him, to avoid the risk of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome – is, or was, clearly a charter member of the global power elite, and should thus have been above such petty things as being hauled in to a precinct station for exercising “droit du seigneur” over a hotel maid. I mean, gosh, this sort of thing happens all the time... especially in France, where I doubt it's illegal or even considered slightly tacky. But hey, we are the inheritors of the Puritan tradition, and are the self-styled moral arbiters of the world... which must serve as a constant irritant to our more sophisticated cousins from across the pond. DSK must be feeling like someone picked up in Utah for having only one wife – like, who are these hayseeds anyway? And it's not as if “New York's finest” are strangers to the... let's call it “fix”. The right phone call to the right person covereth a multitude of sins; it's always been that way and always will be. But on this occasion, the system seems to have broken down. Or has it?

Plus, where is the Obama administration and the State Department in all this? Weren't they the first ones to get the phone call? And yet they seem to have adopted a hands-off position, which has to count as unique in their short history. I mean, they'll jump right in if there's an instance of “hate” in a public school anywhere in the country... but a guy who holds the purse strings to most of the world's currency? Nope, just let the wheels of justice roll on. So clearly something is going on here, and I guess you'd have to be a student of the IMF and all of its machinations – which I am not – to figure it out. But what it does demonstrate, among many other things, is that the global power elite, AKA the Regime, is not the work of a single individual; in other words, there is no Dr. Evil running everything from a high-tech underground control center in Switzerland. What's more likely is that it's like the Mafia – a cabal, an organization, a committee, basically... and that no one individual is indispensable. So no matter how much power you wield, when it's time for you to go, you've got to go – and the time-honored way of doing this – assuming the “cement booties” era is past (except in Arkansas) – is to find a weakness, an Achilles heel, and exploit it. Well, in the case of an all-powerful Frenchman, said Achilles heel has about a 99% chance of having something to do with “l'amour”... and I, for one, would like to know a little more about that allegedly innocent, victimized maid. I mean, OK, she might be for real, but doesn't the whole thing make you wonder? I understand that DSK is not that big a guy, plus he's a senior citizen. Couldn't she have just crowned him with a Ming vase? I'm sure these questions are going to come out sooner or later.

In any case, I imagine that, at some point, it was agreed upon by any number of fellow global elitists that DSK had to go – and go he has. Plus, there's that French political connection to be considered as well. Wow, imagine committing political sabotage against someone who is considered a threat! That would surely never happen in this country, ahem.

Of course, we haven't heard the last of this, and DSK might fly out of the Big Apple any day now, free as a bird. But what counts is that he's political dead meat, and has been ejected from the global elite boardroom – or at least, so it appears. But no matter what happens from here on out, what has already happened is amazing and unprecedented enough. We may, in fact, have seen the power elite at work – a rare treat, considering that the vast majority of their operations are conducted with the greatest secrecy and "deniability". Finally, the limousines with blue-tinted windows have expelled a bit of living, if somewhat misshapen, tissue – and it's an unpleasant, and yet strangely gratifying, sight.