The good news – in a democracy, pointing out the inconsistencies in the behavior of your elected representatives can sometimes shame them into changing that behavior

The bad news – this is not happening in the US, of course.

As I wrote in a Kos diary last week, Le Canard Enchaine, the “anti-establishment weekly”, has unearthed an embarrassing tidbit about the new French Minister of Economy and Finance, Hervé Gaymard – the fact that significant amounts had been spent to renovate and rent a huge appartment for him in the poshest part of Paris, at a time when he is trying to cut budget spending and is asking government employees for pay freezes and savings on operational expenses.

This had already triggered a first reaction from the government, forcing the Minister to give up his new appartment and new rules set for all ministers with regards to their lodgings… (see my previous diary)

Yesterday, the paper came back with more juicy stuff, i.e. the fact that he had lied about not being involved in choosing the appartment, more details on the cost of the renovations, and the various off the record comments form other ministers (Gaymard was a likely contender to be Prime Minister if there is a reshuffling in coming months, as is very possible, and his colleagues/competitors are of course happy about his misstep), and the fact that he actually owns an appartment in Paris already, which he was letting a friend use for free.

More interestingly, the charge was all the stronger because Le Monde, the establishment paper, came out later in the day with a scoop (in French) that he was actually renting his appartment (at slightly below market rates, but nevertheless for an amount which is higher than the median salary in France). Piling in, Paris-Match, a weekly which usually publishes puff-pieces on political and show biz figures, publishes an interview with Gaymard from earlier this week where he says, in an awkward attempt at a populist defense (story in French), that had he come from a wealthy family and had owned his appartment, this would not have come to pass…

Now caught lying twice in what was already a very embarrassing story, his resignation (FT, in English)  suddenly becomes a very possible outcome of this story.

The interesting angle here for dKos is that Le Canard Enchainé is, and has always been, a maverick institution and is in many ways the closest thing we have in France to the blogosphere – a snarky, irreverant and ferocious critic of all institutions, including other journalists. what the paper has is also an incredible reputation for being straight – when they publish something, they ALWAYS have reliables sources and documentation (they’ve been taken to court many times and they never lose) ; they are not afraid to publish corrections when they made a mistake (they call it “smack the duck”); and they are totally independent (they don’t run advertising at all). Only one difference – they are not in electronic form at all…

Also, they unearth a lot of stories, but it becomes a real scandal only when other, more mainstream media, pick up the story and start talking about it. Other wise, the would-be scandals are known only to their readers and not the general public, and they can go away.

The lessons that I take from that, in the context of the Gannon story, for instance is:

• protect your integrity at all costs – that’s your only strength
• the MSM are lazy or dumb – there are lots of fairly easy stories out there if you do your research properly
• to make the stories “real” (it’s an embarrassment only if it’s on TV), you need to get the MSM interested. You need a juicy angle – and they need to have a “scoop” – so I would suggest maybe to feed them some interesting tidbits they can run with.

I know that this administration has no shame, so any similar story in the US may not have an impact on their behavior, but it will have an impact on the opinion people have of them if they can be shown to be petty, or lying, or out of touch with the average citizen.

So here’s hoping!