France & the European Consitution

George Will has a great column on the French no vote in today's WaPo. In it he points to the conundrum that the French have done the right thing, rejecting the EU constitution, for all the wrong reasons. Will's antipathy for the Eu document is rooted in a very American (and some would say British) sense of national pride.

The American Founders struggled through the Articles of Confederation, which gave too much power to the states, to the greatest Constitution written to date, which struck a balance between federal and state power whose exact contours would be decided by succeeding generations (and a Civil War). Europe must do the same thing now. The EU Consitution may be their Articles of Confederation, but the question is: Does Europe have a James Madison, an Alexander Hamilton, a Gouverneur Morris, or any like intellects to lead them.

On a side note, Will has a great description of the socialist Labor leader who awaits Tony Blair's eventual resignation. Enjoy!

"Labor longs for Brown, a dour Scot who embodies the cheerless egalitarianism of socialism understood as more and more queuing by more and more people dependent for increasing numbers of things on a decreasingly competent welfare state."

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