ROY EDROSO

An attempt on the life of Bertrand Delanoe, socialist mayor of Paris, has aggravated concern among the warbloggers. Their concern is not particularly for Delanoe, who seems to be recovering nicely anyway, but for media coverage of his attack.

Assailant Azedine Berkane's stated anti-gay animus (the Mayor is openly gay) has been too prominently cited as a motivation for Instapundit's taste. "There do seem to be rather extensive efforts to downplay any Islamic connections," he wrote on Sunday. (Berkane is of Algerian descent, and "described himself as a practicing Muslim and said he viewed homosexuality as against nature," New York Newsday reports.)

An Instapundit reader boldly links Al Qaeda directly to the deed (I think; the grammar is shaky): "Truly or falsely, Al Qaeda will figure that France is the target that can be pressured by terror and the attack on the mayor and the Cole style strike are in my opinion aimed in that direction."

Andrew Sullivan also worries about the assassination interpretation. "I wonder if these events will in any way cause the gay rights movement in Europe and here to re-think its proximity to the left and to multi-culturalism," he muses. Rod Dreher shouts his usual amen at National Review Online.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that anyone who knows Delanoe was stabbed also knows his assailant was of Arab descent. (It was mentioned in every item about the attack I saw.) Of course, any time a person of Arab extraction is reported to have engaged in violence, terrorism will be the assumption of most American readers. But the French, unlike us, have other things on their minds.

A couple of recent, widely-covered race-related killings of North Africans in France may have put the bias angle top-of-mind. Also, recall that in March a deranged man mowed down eight city council members in Nanterre; the shooter, Richard Durn, described as "a deeply disturbed man with an affinity for guns," seems unlinked to Al Qaeda, though he has also been described as an "ecologist." And on Bastille Day, one Maxime Brunarie, a straight-up, old-fashioned anti-Semite (raving about ZOG and so forth), took a rifle shot at Jacques Chirac.

In America, public violence, like everything else, is now reflexively tied to terrorists. The recent Maryland rampage is at least hypothetically linked to Al Qaeda by venerable right-wing watchdog WorldNetDaily, and Insignificant Thoughts concurs: "I told my wife last night that this was a terrorist (who after he's caught won't be called one)..."

The Maryland shootings may remind some of us of Charlie Starkweather, or Columbine, or any one of dozens of classic American kill-sprees. But there I go again, inserting historical perspective when Everything Has Changed. At Instapundit a Maryland reader declares, "Even if we don't have an Al Qaeda or Separatist Militia, we should still call the calculated, paramilitary, random shootings outside D.C. as we feel them: actions that terrorize the community, make people feel uncomfortable about going outside, and senseless, scary violence..." (IP's comment: "Indeed.")

"Call them as we feel them." The act causes fear; therefore, the act is terrorism; therefore, since we are a war with terror (not anything so prosaic as an enemy nation, though of course this will soon change), it is linked to every other terrifying action from September 11 on down, whatever the race, creed, or political affiliation of the perps may be.

How are the French reacting to their own public violence? Well, Delanoe got stabbed during an all-night party for which he flung open the doors of City Hall to the citizenry. This is in character with his declaration, when he was elected as Paris' first leftist mayor in decades early this year, that "it is time for a democratic party from which no Parisians should feel excluded."

After his assault, Delanoe told Deputy Mayor Christophe Girard that "the 'Nuit Blanche' should continue unchanged and not to dramatise what had happened." Former French Minister of Culture Philippe Douste-Blazy, who had himself been stabbed in 1997, approved Delanoe's actions: "You can't do the job of mayor ... if you're always surrounded by bodyguards," he told reporters.

In this context, opening City Hall to the public, and keeping it open after the attack, seems a more defiant gesture than, say, issuing terror alerts. An IP reader lauds Delanoe: "The ancien regime was more security conscious...but having Delanoe in office is like having sex without a condom: It's not so safe, but it's a hell of a lot more fun." Comments IP: "As for the fun-loving character of the Delanoe mayoralty, well, I'm glad Claire's enjoying it."

His grim tone is puzzling; I though conservatives were supposed to be party animals. A Frenchman, stabbed, yet calls for his fellow citizens to continue the party without him; American warbloggers grimly spin the event to increase war fever. Which seems more confident of victory to you?