The Irony Of Trump Celebrating The French Revolution Is Too Mind-blowing To Comment On

I never forget Bastille Day; it's my parents wedding anniversary and I thought that was the coolest thing about their marriage. That Donald Trump was the guest of honor for the celebration of it today is a little bizarre, considering what it was all about. Conservatives may be more comfortables referring to July 14 as la Fête nationale rather than as Bastille Day, but it does commemorate the historic storming on the Bastille and the oomph that gave the French Revolution. The spark that set the day off was the firing of Jacques Necker, the finance minister-- who was known to be sympathetic to the plight of the common workers-- and by the desire of the workers to arm themselves against an expected attack from Louis XVI's army. The immediate result of the storming of the Bastille was the formal abolition of feudalism and the subsequent Declaration of the Rights of Man by Thomas Jefferson and his pal, the Marquis de Lafayette. Emmanuel Macron-- who deserves an award for keeping a straight face today and yesterday while Señor Trumpanzee babbled his nonsense-- is more than aware that the current boob Putin helped install in the White House is no Thomas Jefferson.

My best friend is Roland Charest, whose ancestors traveled from France to Quebec and subsequently to Maine, and this year we spent most of June in Paris. My first trip to France was more than 4 decades earlier, when I was bumming around Europe in a VW van for the summer after my graduation, something that turned into an adventure of nearly 7 years. France was special to me precisely because of the French Revolution and its significance in the battle against predator anti-social families like the Trumps, historical scourges of humanity.

Many years later, as president of a division of TimeWarner on an official visit to our French affiliate, I was taken by the company to the restaurant on top of the Eiffel Tower, the Jules Verne. which Willa Frej denounced yesterday as "a giant tourist trap, basically the equivalent of dining inside the Statue of Liberty." She's totally and utterly wrong, although I've never been inside the Statue of Liberty. I don't usually care much about views in restaurants, just about food-- an the Jules Verne's is fantastic. And that's not just a memory from the 1980s. Roland and I ate there 3 weeks ago. Alain Ducasse's restaurant's food matches the incomparable views. Macron could have taken Trump to Guy Savoy (slightly better) but the Jules Verne is one of France's best restaurants and only a boob would reflexively decide its "one of the most cliché venues imaginable." I have a feeling Frej has never eaten there but I'm sure she'll be relieved to hear that you can tell the waiter, as many do, that you don't want the foie gras and they replace it with a healthier dish that's far better-- even the waiters say it's far better.

Meeting dinner at Guy Savoy

Most of the food we ate in Paris wasn't quite on a Michelin star level-- and I'm still trying to work off that 14 course dinner at Guy Savoy-- but all the food was unbelievable. Even just a baguette and some cheese and tomato is more delicious in Paris. No, really, it is. Ask anyone who's been there.