Sex Doesn't Always Sell

Why refer to the 35-hours work week (totally irrelevant in this article) or the 'nationalistic' French. I'm French, and (it might surprise you) NOT America-bashing. Don't you realize this is pretty offending?
Liberal papers pride themselves with their great tolerance and open-ness, but I don't find so many deprecating remarks in conservative media (at least these last years). Of course, I guess writing about the 'lazy and nationalistic' Mexicans or Blacks would be a big 'No-no', but the French? No problem!

Sameer, while i sort of agree with bege here, dumb comments from people called Dewi (indonesian? norwegian?...in any case, hindu wannabe) tick me off. you write well, and will do better as the hair grey and you lay claim to maybe 1/2 of Bruni's 30! but sometimes itsgood to remind people of your millenia-old cultural heritage, your erudition and basically what would happen if you and yours left NASA and the Silicon Valley and even Citibank to the Dewis of this world.

You got priorities wrong. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is a highly successful woman who "happens" to be married to the wife of the French President. [in short she is Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, not Carla Sarkozy or Carla Sarkozy-Bruni]. As the President's wife, she has a role driven by public expectations and by any measure, incluging those of the British - France's most feared critics - has been doing very well.
Even to an older French male, your opinion on women, and companions in general, seem totally outdated. Long is gone the time of the First Lady, that smiling, gentle female thing quitely sitting in the shadow of her hero political beast.
Had Hillary Clinton - and Carla Bruni - been President, I really wonder what kind of article you would have actually written on Bill and Nicolas: Sex Does not Always Sell?

America isn't ready for nor do we really need a Carla Sarkozy as first lady but we need a June Cleaver even less. How much longer are we going to remain the Hypocrite Champions of the Universe? The more an American preaches morality in public the more you can be sure that they indulge in "immoral" practices behind locked doors and pulled shades. Get yourselves real lives and lighten up for cryin' out loud! What can honestly be wrong with being and acting human? And by the way, America doesn't hold a monopoly on this kind of shameful behavior, it goes on in many other countries too, it's just not as obvious or as intense. There are far more important issues in America and the world to be concerned with and to act on so why is so much time and effort being wasted on hypocrisy? Get with it!

Gosh, the author is sooo right! What are we Americans thinking?!? We should accept and praise Carla's affairs with married men after all we wouldn't want her to demonstrate self control I mean "self-denial" . Her songs to heroin we should see as brave. All first ladies should also model street walker wear because , shouldn't we just be thinking of our first lady's sexuality and not something stupid like their character!

I don't know if anyone has touched on this so far, but it is important to remember that Carla Bruni was not married to Sarkozy at the time of his election. He was married to the former, and actually, 2nd, Mrs. Sarkozy while he was running for president. The two divorced merely months after he came into office and he was re-married just months after that. Since the president is not particularly popular within France primarily due to his right-wing policies, his relationship with Bruni has received quite a bit of public scrutiny and I wouldn't necessarily say they are "accepting" of her and her past, just ambivalent.

A first lady such as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is just what this country needs. Pretty tired of librarians, grandmothers and heiresses. Why not someone with some personality?

This article makes the same conceptual mistake so many other honest conversations of sexual identity seem to make. I got a sense that the author (as well as some of our unpaid authors below) was trying to make the Lady into some sort of Platonic Form--as if he could tell us what it was and what it was not. Do Cindy McCain's well-fit suits make her more of a Lady? Does Carla Bruni's personality make her less? It seems to me, from reading the article and the comments, that the ideal Lady is a biological woman who is modest, demure and yet confident, enjoys sex but doesn't sing songs about it, is pretty without being threatening, supportive of her husband while speaking her own mind, young but not immature, and ambitious as long as it doesn't supercede her husband. Does this sound contradictory at all to anyone else? Can't a woman be who she is truly comfortable being and only change if SHE truly cares what the public at large thinks? I would ask the readers who criticized Mme Bruni-Sarkozy if they truly feel that a public figure is at the COMPLETE mercy of the public whim at all times. Do those that wed the figures that seek to represent their fellow men and women forever give up their individuality and expression for the sake of a few less blushes and clucked tongues?

Your writing is clever and upbeat. It is also insightful. Too bad Americans continue to fear sexuality. It's either X rated or non-existent. Yes, we are polarized--Penal colonists vs. Puriitan setttlers here!

I vote that a candidate's wife can "be who she wants to be", no matter who she is married to. And that includes American candidate's wives. In France, Sarkozy's current wife is care-free, open, and has her own identity with her singing career and all. I want to point out that when Sarkozy was ELECTED, he, too, had a more conservative woman as his wife and at his side. *So, hello?* In general, women who want their private lives to remain private, dress conservatively as an outward statement. It does not mean that she is "a pot plant or a vegetable" (to quote someone else's former comments about Laura Bush). Let's just take a FOR INSTANCE: Let's say our President is suddenly married to Carla Sarkozy----what then? All the foreign countries would cry that this is "proof" of America's moral downfall! We can't win!!!!!!

Alistair Cooke had it right many years ago when he said that America is like a coin with a church on one side and a brothel on the other. The hypocrisy of expecting public figures to act in a manner that we, the public, couldn't and wouldn't live up to, makes us the laughing stock of the world. We preach values that we only follow when it's convenient and then wonder why other nations don't support us or choose a direction different from our own. What's more important, a competent president with a racy wife or a total dud married to Miss Perfect? Let's vote for substance, not appearance.

Thank you Newsweek for this article.Finally, i am validated for my thoughts of the ulta conservative take over of the "free" (ha! ha!) american people. Yes I am american and each day I grow more ashamed and diconcerted about the "DARK AGES" and 14C-16C "INQUSITION" throw into this mix Dicatorship attitudes of the, ruling powers of america.We are an embarrasment unto ourselves.Thank God for people like the French President and his beautiful first lady! And while we are on the subject of style, lets get the political and business community males to change their worn out hair do's and winged tipped shoes! Come on america this is the 21st century! Don't forget to send Mr.Bush back to English 101 where he will stay until he passes,and no his dad can not bribe the head school master!
Sincerely,
Ms.Disillusioned

You obviously don't get it. As an American woman, I regret to inform you that I thought your comments were so hilarious that I could not even take your article seriously. American women are not more ditz-heads than from any other country. Your immaturity is showing.

We as Americans need to pride ourselves for our values and ethics. It is a GOOD thing to want modest women in the white house. Orgies and threesomes?! The world is in sorry shape and that's the best the French can do? Let's hope we Americans stay above all that!