The arrested suspect, now released on millionaire bail, has been unable to take up residence in New York’s super luxury Bristol Plaza building, where the management is said to have banned him from occupying the two apartments that his wife had booked there.
In the Plaza chambers of New York opinion is distinctly unsympathetic:
‘one resident said the media scrum was the first news he had heard of Strauss-Kahn's arrival. "It's outrageous. You think someone would have told us. I am going to object to this," he said.’
Meanwhile on the streets of Paris a more sceptical attitude prevails:
‘some people think Dominique Strauss-Kahn was stitched up by President Sarkozy. Some think it was the Germans, executing that well-known route out of a common currency, where you honeytrap the main defender of the euro. And some people think it was the Americans, acting out of sheer anti-French malice, or objecting to Strauss-Kahn's observation that the US has breached its debt ceiling (it stands at $14.3 trillion). What I didn't find was one person who actually thinks Strauss-Kahn could possibly have attempted to rape a chambermaid.’
Parisians point out that the gentleman had ample means to indulge his sexual appetites more discreetly, and that his power and wealth could command many women’s favours without protest. Another speculates that the maid, perhaps not knowing who he was, may not thereby have found him attractive:
‘By this rationale, DSK was brought down by his poor brand reach.’
As usual it’s all about brands. Would J**** D**** have had such a problem?
