President Bush told the Union of English-Speaking Peoples today that those who seek the U.S. Presidency should “at least make an effort to look American.” The President told the monolingual audience that, “at a time when American values are being assaulted by a country we’ve had to liberate twice in the last century, it’s a bit much that Senator Kerry goes around acting like the headwaiter at some snooty French restaurant.” Mr. Bush conceded that the most American-looking President was probably Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, but he said that Franklin Roosevelt’s middle name, Delano, “sounded pretty French.”

Top Republican strategist Karl Rove today dismissed Senator John Kerry’s charge that President Bush is understating budget deficits as a “typically Gallic smear.” In a speech to the Anti-French League of Greater Indianapolis, Rove said, “If it quacks like a canard, and walks like a canard, you can bet it’s a canard.” He added, “I guess I don’t have to translate that for Monsieur Kerry.” He suggested that the Massachusetts Senator was basing his calculations on euros instead of dollars.

In a sign that the Bush campaign plans to portray Senator John Kerry as an aloof, anti-American snob who doodles on legal pads during Senate committee hearings by conjugating French irregular verbs, Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon unveiled a half-dozen thirty-second spots designed to emphasize Mr. Kerry’s “alarming and unapologetic Francophilia.” The ads, which McKinnon admits have been “somewhat” computer-enhanced, variously depict the Senator singing the “Marseillaise” on the floor of the U.S. Senate during a filibuster in the discussion of Bush judicial appointees, raising the French tricolor over the U.S. Capitol, and groping French actress Sophie Marceau during an anti-Iraq-war protest march on the Mall in Washington.

The Bush campaign today denied that it played any role in the leaking of video-rental records showing that Senator Kerry favors French films. The list of movies allegedly borrowed by Mr. Kerry includes “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday,” “The 400 Blows,” and “Claire’s Knee,” all by French directors. The movies are subtitled in English. However, a top Bush aide remarked that the Senator “wouldn’t need the translations, since French is practically his first language.” He added, “It’s deplorable, at a time when Americans are struggling to make ends meet, that Mr. Kerry is pouring money into the economy of a country that sided with Saddam Hussein during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld today said that Senator Kerry, when he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, “probably” went to Vietnam for the purpose of winning the country back “for the French.” “I’m not saying he wasn’t brave,” Rumsfeld said. “Oh, my goodness, no. But was he really there to fight against Communist aggression, or was it to get back at the North Vietnamese for the loss of Dien Bien Phu? I think that’s a perfectly legitimate question.”

Responding to allegations by the Kerry campaign that his surname denotes French ancestry, Vice-President Cheney issued a statement that he would “probably commit suicide” if he found out that he had “so much as one cc. of French blood.” He said that the name Cheney was German-Scots-Irish, with “a touch of Faeroe Islands and Mohican Indian.” One ancestor, he said proudly, had fought against the French at Waterloo, while another “scalped enough Frenchmen during the French and Indian War to make himself a warm winter coat.”

During the first Presidential debate, last night, President Bush repeatedly addressed Democratic challenger John Kerry with French expressions, calling him “mon vieux,” “mon cher,” and even “mon petit chou.” The latter means, literally, “my little cabbage.” Senator Kerry for the most part ignored the President, until Mr. Bush asserted that Mr. Kerry looked as though he had “been weaned on a cornichon.” At this point, the Senator had apparently had enough. “Merde, alors!” he said, his face a mask of cold, distinctly Gallic fury. “Assez! Salopard! Tu veux un morceau de moi? Eh?”

In what was viewed by many as a bid to woo Hispanic voters, Mr. Bush responded in Spanish, inviting Mr. Kerry either to kiss a burro or to sit on a burrito. The exact meaning was not immediately clear.

Both sides claimed victory.