derelictions of duty

The decision by President Nicholas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany not to attend the funeral of Polish President Lech Kazcynski was a gross dereliction of duty and a disgraceful trahesion of European values.
Sarkozy and Merkel used the comic opera shutdown of European airspace last week as an excuse not to attend the funeral of one of Europe's greatest Statesmen.
If they genuinely couldn't fly, which I doubt, they could easily have made it to Poland overland.
The appropriate action for the Heads of State of France and Germany was of course to get into their high powered chauffeur driven limousines and immediately head up the road to the funeral in Cracow.
Couple of hours journey.
No big deal.
The welching derelicts obviously thought they had better things to be doing.
An entire generation of Polish leaders had been wiped out in the still unexplained plane crash in Russia.
For the President of France and Chancellor of Germany to snub the funerals is beyond comprehension.
The real reason for the absence of these two cosmic mediocrities lies in their disaffection for the principled political stands evinced by President Kazcynski throughout his lifetime.
Sarkozy and Merkel represent faux conservative political parties.
Their political parties are in that deep dessicated cultural dysfunction which for some decades has condemned Western European electorates to choosing between an array of fervourless cloned corporate entities, some styling themselves conservative, but all deeply socialist.
This moribund short circuiting of democracy never really happened in Poland.
Poles have ensured that their parliament is peopled with at least some politicians who have genuine beliefs.
President Lech Kazcynski had no intention of allowing Poland to yoke itself to new oppressors in the Brussels parliament, having just seen off the old oppressors of Soviet Russia.
From their experiences with Russia, the Poles knew all too well what real oppression was.
They were not keen to risk signing away their culture and their freedoms for a mass of Brussels entitlement pottage.
Hence Poland has become a firm partner in Europe without ever abandoning its vibrant sense of self.
President Lech Kazcynski's articulation of Poland's partnership with Europe was based on plain speaking, courageous negotiation, and honorable discernment.
For Sarkozy and Merkel, the genuine patriotic conservative principles of President Lech Kazcynski were completely alien.
As indeed are any principles.
Sarkozy and Merkel are nothing.
Functionaries.
Committee men.
And Europe is very poorly led at a time when Vladimir Putin of Russia is engineering a resurgence of sovietism.