Crushing On Carla

Note: Some photos in this post may not be work-safe.

The Carla Effect
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 22, 2008

Maureen Dowd is back from her Euro-Junket with George and she returns with a crush on the wife of prominent politician. No, not Michelle, Laura, Cindy, or even Bill, but Carla Bruni. Maureen fauns over the French vixen that has won the heart (among other organs) of Nicolas Sarkozy. This is a story too good to just let words paint, so we bring a special illustrated edition of Dowd Report today.

If an American first lady, or would-be first lady, described herself as a “tamer of men” and had a “man-eating” past filled with naked pictures, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, sultry prone CD covers, breaking up marriages, bragging that she believes in polygamy and polyandry rather than monogamy, and having a son with a married philosopher whose father she had had an affair with, it would take more than an appearance on “The View” to sweeten her image.

Carla Bruni was a model who posed for many “tasteful” nude pictures before becoming First Madame. When you do a GoogleImages search for Carla Bruni with SafeSearch off, it's harder to find pictures of her with her clothes on than off. Trust me on this. The photo below recently sold at auction for $91,000 dollars to a Japanese horndog collector.


One of Carla’s album covers where she is fully clothed, but just as sultry (and a little bit chilly):

And this is all in contrast to the rather tame fist-bumping Michelle does with the cacklers on Baba Wawa’s estrogen-laden talk-fest where bloggers get their undies in a wad because the potential First Lady likes to wear clothes sans sleeves.

Or if Michelle gave an interview, as Carla did in a new book, “La Véritable Histoire de Carla et Nicolas,” revealing that she fell in love with her husband for his many fertile brains.

One chapter of the book is called “Le Diable s’Habille en Carla,” or “The Devil Wears Carla.” And the most repeated anecdote is the one where Carla slyly teases the French justice minister, Rachida Dati, a Sarko protégé, as they pass by a bed in the Élysée: “You would have loved to occupy it, wouldn’t you?”

Rachida Dati (left) and Carla in formal wear.

According to British tabloid Telegraph, the incident is meant as a dig at the rather glamorous Dati for not being able to close the deal with Nicolas while Carla snuck in and snatched the brass ring, er, wedding band.

At the funeral of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, Sarkozy got some catcalls when he got out of his car, while Carla, a former model for the designer, who calls herself “nothing more than a folk singer,” got applause and oohs and aahs.

The applause and gasps may be more for her rather daring choice of formal mourning wear that does not seem to include underwear.


As far as folk singer goes, she does like to strum the guitar even if her lyrics are more Kurt Cobain than Edith Piaf.

It’s hard to imagine the decibel level on Fox News if Michelle Obama put out a CD this summer, as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is, with songs featuring lyrics like “I am a child/despite my 40 years/despite my 30 lovers/a child”; and this song, “Ma came”: “You are my junk/more deadly than Afghan heroin/more dangerous than Colombian white. .../My guy, I roll him up and smoke him.”

Carla, sensing the potential explosiveness of the songs has declined to tour until her hubby is out of office.

The magazine Le Point had a cover with Carla’s gleaming face and the headline “La Présidente,” with a picture inside of Sarko standing docilely behind his wife, as she sat at his desk and offered that assured feline gaze to the camera.

Alas, my navigation skilz for the French language magazine web archives were not l33t enough to find the feline gaze picture mentioned, so the cover picture will have to do.

Just as Carla charmed the Queen of England and Princes Charles and Philip with her demure French schoolgirl look, she charmed George and Laura Bush on their visit, inviting Laura 30 minutes early for a girls’ tête-à-tête, and then sitting next to the American president and keeping him entertained with a spirited conversation in English, one of her three languages and sort of his one language.

The barely pregnant Carla wowed the Royal Family on their recent visit.

At a press availability the next day, W. interrupted his own boring observation about “the importance of the Doha Round” to smilingly tell his pal Sarko: “It was a great pleasure to have been able to meet your wife. She’s a really smart, capable woman, and I can see why you married her. And I can see why she married you, too.”

Phony caption: “Come on Nikki, can’t we just swap for one night?
Those librarians can surprise you.”

No matter what Dubya thinks, Carla sure has had an effect on Maureen. She seems smitten with this sexually and politically liberated wife of a world leader. As Maureen states:

The French are different from you and me.

And as the French say: Vive la Différence!