Location, location, location

Daniel Drezner praises Elaine Sciolino, who is leaving Paris after five years as the New York Times’ correspondent, as a “fine reporter/observer”. Not so fast, cautions Arthur Goldhammer:

Her swan song reminds us why she will not be missed. For our national newspaper’s chief correspondent, France means above all sexy underwear, friendly butchers, nasty haberdashers, handkissing, and other quaintnesses. La grande Nation is a dotty old aunt best captured in droll anecdotes.

Now, to be sure, Madame Sciolino’s farewell despatch is meant to be whimsical, even jolly. Alas, it’s simply cliched, banal and, appallingly, stuffed with name-dropping. More to the point, it’s also supposed to demonstrate how peculiarly funny and odd the French are. One has the sense that five years in France have neither led Sciolino to like or understand the French.

So I’m in Goldhammer’s camp.