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Strauss-Kahn Resigns

Posted on | May 19, 2011 | 2 Comments

IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn submitted his resignation last night, “with infinite sadness.” It’s hard to beat “infinite,” but the sadness might get worse if Strauss-Kahn’s accuser turns out to be HIV-positive.

Joseph A. Harriss, Paris correspondent for The American Spectator, raises an interesting question about Strauss-Kahn:

Strauss-Kahn’s personal Götterdämmerung on Saturday came with stunning swiftness. On Friday he had checked into the upscale Sofitel in the Times Square area, staying in a $3,000 a night suite with foyer, conference room, living room, marble bathroom and bedroom. It was a lavish layout for a personal trip whose purpose is still unclear; an embarrassed IMF stated firmly that he was not on official business.
He was due in Berlin on Sunday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by two days of meetings in Brussels to work on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. He could easily have taken a flight from Washington’s Dulles airport without going through New York. Oddly, when police pulled him off an Air France flight Saturday afternoon just two minutes before it left the gate, the plane was headed not to Berlin, but to Paris.

Indeed, if Strauss-Kahn was en route from D.C. to Berlin, why the extra stops in New York and Paris?

UPDATE: The New York Times:

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s extramarital affairs have long been considered an open secret. But the legal charges against him — which include attempted rape, forced oral sex and an effort to sequester another person against her will — are of an entirely different magnitude, even in France and elsewhere in continental Europe.

Raping the hotel maid: Wrong even in France! Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

In France, meanwhile, it seems that the initial round of America-bashing over the notion that a presumably great man like Strauss-Kahn could get arrested over a maid (sacre bleu!) has given way to a little more honesty.  Both National Journal and Time Magazine report today that Strauss-Kahn’s reputation as a womanizer glossed over a well-known cruel streak that didn’t exist with other mainstream French politicians.

Here’s a video report from EuroNews:

More commentary at Memeorandum.

UPDATE II: Strauss-Kahn hired hookers from Manhattan madam? Yeah, maybe that explains the New York detour.

Category: Crime, New York

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