The Rundown for Thursday

This is of course the rundown for Thursday...

Sent by Marc Naimark | 5:11 PM | 7-2-2008

I imagine you'll be covering the Ingrid Betancourt liberation tomorrow morning. Here in France, where Betancourt is a cause celebre, I think there will be a bit of disappointment mixed with the joy. She's become everyone's favorite cause, something that we all pretend is important to us, when there are so many other stories that go untold, so many other hostages forgotten, so many other victims of atrocities here and abroad.

But it just felt so good for Mayor Bertran Delanoe to put up a giant poster of her on the facade of city hall, for bloggers to post a clicker for the days of captivity, for the media to report every rumor concerning Ingrid, for Sarkozy to send his plane back and for and back again to Colombia or French Guiana.

I'm happy for Ms. Betancourt, but I'm just wondering what the French will do without their favorite feel-good-at-feeling-bad story.

Sent by Marc Naimark | 5:16 PM | 7-2-2008

Won't they just revert to looking at Sarko and thinking the Francophone equivalent to "Geez, I can't believe we elected this yutz..."?

Sent by Stewart | 10:53 PM | 7-2-2008

Getting some flack for the Napoleon story I take it? Never heard so many mentions in the rundown that you were both a radio show and on NPR. It almost sounded like you were repeating that fact for yourselves, and not for your Rundown audience...

It was an awesome news story by the way. You probably only get the chance to do something like that once in your careers, and you did not disappoint. Fist-bump for the risk taking!

Sent by Will G | 11:00 PM | 7-2-2008