Marine Le Pen's efforts to create a kinder, gentler and more electable National Front know no limits: she has actually crossed the rubicon, gone behind enemy lines to visit the United States, a country she routinely lambasts as "imperialist."

(She is presumably traveling via the reciprocal 90-day tourist visa-waiver program enjoyed by French and American citizens, something she has pledged to abolish if elected, but never mind that.)

Unfortunately, it's not really working out the way she planned. Promoting her trip as an opportunity to meet with officials from both major parties, she hit a snag when trip headliner Ron Paul was suddenly unable to keep his rendez-vous with the presidential hopeful. Paul's spokesman cited a scheduling conflict, but Le Pen's camp has suggested that France's two dominant parties "pressured" the Americans into not meeting with her. Methinks she over-estimates the political influence of French political parties outside of Europe, but who knows? (UPDATE: Le Figaro now reports that Le Pen did indeed meet with Mr. Paul this afternoon. Afterwards, Mme Le Pen waxed poetic to the press about their "long discussion" of common values and the importance of returning to the gold standard, while Mr. Paul's spokesperson describes a "brief meeting during which the gold standard was discussed.")

After "several" meetings with mostly-unnamed political figures (including arch-conservative Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois), she will cap off her trip with a visit to Zuccotti Park and a tribute to the Occupy Wall Street protestors based there.

Wait...what?

Do you think Congressman Walsh, who recently suggested that the goal of the OWS "seems to be to trash parks and sidewalks and add to local taxpayer's bills," will give her a care package to take to the protesters?

It's no secret that the French political spectrum works differently than its American counterpart, but the buttons Mme Le Pen is trying to push here stretch the limits of absurdity. Let's analyze what she has in common with her American consorts:

  • The kind of fiscal conservatism and social laissez-faire put forth by Ron Paul's people could not be further afield from the nationalist, isolated police state envisioned for France by the National Front faithful. Gold standard philosophizing aside—and I sincerely question her competence on such a complicated and far-reaching economic concept—the only thing these two have in common is that they've both zero chance to win their respective presidencies next year.
  • Joe Walsh, who once remarked that there shouldn't be a social safety net in the United States because it isn't specifically mentioned in the Constitution, represents a small-government demographic that doesn't even exist in France. At least if she had gone to, say, Arizona she could have met with Russell Pearce, with whom she could have enthusiastically traded anti-immigrant rhetoric. (Oh wait, it was Walsh who made the "even if it takes moats and alligators" comment about securing American borders, wasn't it? I guess they have that in common.)
  • Lastly, what is she going to talk about with the Occupy Wall Street people? Sure, they both identify the international banking and investment system as pure evil, but who doesn't? How is the woman who recently grappled with the question of whether or not to suspend an elected National Front official after he was caught on the Internet doing the "Heil Hitler" schtick going to mix with the savvy neo-hippies and left-wing intellectuals in Zucotti Park? As much as I'd love to be there to hear the awkwardness...

But hey, no skin off my behind if Marine Le Pen wants to drain the famously fragile National Front coffers on fruitless voyages to a country she so often holds up as an example of what's wrong with the universe, right? At least she's not here, convincing weathered old communists that the National Front is the answer to all their problems...which actually seems to be happening, at least a little bit. Yeesh.