Comment du Jour

DSK—Beyond Bizarre

How the mighty have fallen! In what could only be called a bizarre sequence of events, Dominique Strauss Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been arrested in New York, accused of the attempted rape of a hotel maid.

DSK, as he is know universally in France, was one of those global high rollers, the kind of person who was jet setting around the world going to global finance meetings and was slated to be the Socialist candidate in next year’s French Presidential election. Instead DSK has slipped from a $3,000 a night, 28th floor suite in the Sofitel to a holding cell on Rikers Island. Strauss-Kahn originally denied the chambermaid’s allegation, but has since said she agreed to consensual sex.

DSK has, should we say, a well-known reputation for being a womanizer but his recent action has landed the IMF lothario amid New York’s most hardened criminals. While many French are hardly surprised about his recent foibles, most are equally aghast over his high profile handcuffing, sans VIP treatment, and transfer to a tiny cell in one of the USA’s toughest prisons.

Humiliation aside, it’s not clear why this high-profile alleged perpetuator had to be sent to Rikers Island when he could be put under secure house arrest with an ankle bracelet and all the trappings. Sending him to Rikers among the lowest levels of Dante’s inferno for the criminal classes, will only sour Franco/American relations and in the end achieve little.

No matter what the outcome of this sordid case, it’s obvious DSK will not be the Socialist Party’s standard bearer against Nicolas Sarkozy, nor will he be running the IMF.

Beyond DSK's blatant stupidity, criminal malice, and moral-slobbery, there’s a man whose arrogance is yet to be deflated.


**Update
As of Friday 20 May, DSK posted $1 million in bail and was allowed to leave Rikers Island and move into house arrest in a Manhattan apartment where he shall have an ankle bracelet and security. This arrangement evokes the Bernie Madoff melodrama where the financial fraudster was allowed to remain in his Upper East Side apartment awaiting trial.