Full Disclosure

Let me begin by saying that I am an unabashed Francophile. I went to school there, speak the language, return as much as possible, want to retire to Provence and have many wonderful friends throughout the country.

I am also Jewish.

And I have always loved women, especially my beautiful, wonderful bride.

That's where the similarities between me and Dominique Strauss-Kahn end.

He, as you may have heard, has been charged with rape involving a woman and an alleged event that took place at a New York City hotel last week.

I say alleged because, again, in our system of justice, one is assumed innocent until found guilty by a jury of peers in a court of law.

I polled my French friends about this and, almost to a person, they condemned the act but suggested that it might be a conspiracy, a "complot", organized by DSK's enemies in the French political hierarchy headed by his adversary, the very unpopular Nicholas Sarkosy.

Now, DSK has a reasonably bad reputation. He, himself, is quoted as saying that the three obstacles to his being elected president of France are money, his Jewish heritage and women.

Some have suggested that he has attacked women before and that he has had numerous affairs.

But did he rape this woman? How can we know? It's her word against his. This would not be the first time that a woman has cried rape when there wasn't one.

Just last year Heidi Jones of WABC-TV in New York was arrested after allegedly filing a false police report claiming rape in Central Park.

This stuff happens.

And it would not be above a politician to pay someone to cry rape as a way of eliminating his conmpetition.

We may never know but it seems that DSK deserves the benefit of doubt...of a reasonable doubt...that he is innocent, that he, in fact, didn't "do it."

Whether or not he is a good financier, or a good politician or a philanderer or Jewish or French should have nothing to do with whether or not he deserves the same treatment as the rest of us.

In this country we apply different standards to this sort of event. The French don't care about your personal proclivities and are much more open sexually. The French gauge a politician on his intellectual strength, not on his personal behaviors, likes or dislikes.

We have a love/hate relationship with the French...and with Jews...and with rich people...and with sex.

DSK was arrested in New York. It would have been different in Paris. The alleged crime is serious and the French judicial system would deal harshly with him if he were to be found guilty. No question about that.

But they would have been more discreet, more subtle, more refined.

But they are an older society. They are the adults and we are still dealing with our teenage impulses.

They enjoy fine wines and food.

We gulp Coke and McDonald's.

We revel in the Perp Walk.

They are repulsed by it.

C'est la vie...