As you may have noticed, France elected a new president named Francois Hollande. I’m delighted. It’s rare that a country and its president so richly deserve one another. France, after all, is a nation that sat by while its Muslim population set its cities afire because sharia law wasn’t yet on the books. Then, more recently, they had riots because their former president proposed that in order to save the economy, retirement age would have to be raised from 60 to 62. The fact that they might have to work an additional two years 40 years down the road was more than enough to send outraged 20-year-old Frenchies into the streets.

Keep in mind that they are already guaranteed two months of paid vacation every year. That means that over the course of four decades, that’s 80 months or nearly seven years they’re not punching a clock. So, in reality, it’s more like lifting the retirement age from 53 to 55.

But not to worry! Monsieur Hollande, a socialist who looks like a crooked accountant, has promised that France will not have to deal with such brutal austerity measures; which, translated from the French, apparently means working.

I guess, like the rest of Europe, he’s relying on Germany to keep his left-wing sluggards supplied with berets, bad coffee and stinky cigarettes. Still, if I recall my history, Germany doesn’t have unlimited patience with deadbeats. I’m not one to tell Hollande his business, but I sure wouldn’t want to appear too lackadaisical when it comes to repaying the Germans for borrowed euros. The guys they send to collect wear jackboots and make the Mafia’s bagmen look like Boy Scouts.

No sooner did our own socialist president create a firestorm by suggesting that he, not the Navy Seals, was singularly responsible for killing Osama bin Laden by delivering an address that, as usual, was filled with “I” and “me,” but, in announcing his decision to come out in favor of homosexual marriages, he referred to gay members of the military who are “fighting on my behalf.” Funny, but I thought, and I’m willing to bet they thought, they were fighting on America’s behalf.

It’s one thing for conservatives to accuse this palooka of being the biggest narcissist this side of a Hollywood diva, but quite another when he constantly reinforces the notion that he sincerely believes the world revolves not around the sun, but around himself.

If Barack Obama were a fictional character, he’d be funny in the way that the vain and stupid anchorman, Ted Baxter, was funny on the old “Mary Tyler Moore Show” or Major Frank Burns was on “MASH.” But when the schmuck is sitting in the Oval Office, his arrogance and general ineptitude are not nearly so amusing.

Frankly, I wish I could devote all my time to ridiculing Obama, but America’s other liberals keep diverting my attention. For instance, the Massachusetts legislature recently decided to outlaw bake sales. Taking their lead from Mrs. Obama, they decided that it would be criminal to encourage sugar consumption, even if it’s done in a worthy cause. Ask liberals, such as Michael Bloomberg, which is worse, sugar or strychnine, and these dunces would have to take the question under advisement. But, apparently, what the New England nannies hadn’t counted on was Governor Deval Patrick putting the kibosh on the measure.

If not for Patrick’s sweet tooth, Massachusetts schools, churches and benevolent organizations, would have had to come up with other ways of raising money. One fellow who’s breathing easier these days is the guy whose job it would have been to tell those uppity Girl Scouts and their damn cookies where to get off.

Typically, about 10% of my email in an election year consists of angry conservatives insisting that there’s not a smidgen of difference between Democrats and Republicans. And no matter how many points of difference I list, they ignore the facts, preferring to wallow in their ignorance, while muttering obscenities about what they like to call the Republican establishment, a group of anonymous good-for-nothings that apparently includes everyone who isn’t them.

Because I have grown tired of trying to set them straight, I’ll quote a Boston fireman named Jim, who summed it up this way: “The Republicans are for the working man; the Democrats are for the non-working man.” Or, as an unknown source put it: “According to liberals, I’m supposed to be more worried about how Mitt Romney spends his money than how Barack Obama spends mine.”

Finally, my favorite moment of this election year occurred in the West Virginia Democratic primary when Obama garnered 58% of the vote and Keith Judd, otherwise known as inmate 11593-051, who’s serving a 17-year term in a Texas prison for extortion, received a whopping 42% without spending a dime on his campaign.

In related news, it’s rumored that Barack Obama is considering dumping Joe Biden as his running mate in favor of political phenom, Keith Judd.