What Happened, What Happened!? He Spoke French!!

Apparently, the campaign to associate the name "John Kerry" with the phrase "haughty, French-looking" has exacted its cruel toll: the Dems' French-fluent First Family is starting to act defensively monolingual, according to this amusing little bit in The New Yorker. Excerpt:

Suddenly, Kerry appeared to develop linguistic amnesia. "During a press conference, I asked Kerry a question, on Iraq," de Chalvron recalled. "He didn?t answer. In front of the American journalists, he didn't want to take a question that was not in English." [?]

Family members have apparently been put on a leash as well. Kerry's wife, Berrou says, "speaks with us in French with no problem, and her press attach? has to pull her by the shirt to get her away from us."