Sheldon Richman of the Future of Freedom Foundation on Boycott the Boycotters:
O’Reilly and others want Americans to lay off French products because France’s president, Jacques Chirac, didn’t parrot the Bush line on war with Iraq. He says we should buy Poland Spring bottled water rather than Evian and not vacation in France. Will that change the French government’s policy? No, O’Reilly says. “This isn’t trying to influence policy. This is payback.”
Payback? How so? Regardless of what one thought of the Bush administration’s policy or the Chirac administration’s dissent, one should immediately see the problem with the campaign: it wants to punish French individuals for what their government did. How absurd. You don’t like Chirac, so you “retaliate” by harming French people working in the private sector to satisfy American consumers? I hope the smart bombs in Iraq were more accurate than that.
Bill, quite simply is an idiot. Read the rest of Sheldon's piece here.