What Would Jason Do?

Walking by the Gare de L'Est on my way out of Paris, I got a sense of déjà vu ¹—and realized something that eluded me the whole time I'd been there:

I want to be Jason Bourne.

Sure, Jason Bourne—the amnesiac assassin played, in a trio of recent movies, by Matt Damon—is a stone killer, as liable to murder a man with a paperback book as with a knife, gun, or his own well-trained hands. But still... this corn-fed, athletic, Midwestern ex-pat boy is a role model for Americans everywhere.

1. He lives in Paris. That's cool.
2. He is fluent in no fewer than six languages (French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish and English), and has no xenophobia about relating to people from outside the United States.
3. He can handle a Mini Cooper like a NASCAR driver.
4. He has great taste in women.
5. He can run really really fast.
6. He's adept at picking up new skills and new technologies.

Last, and I'm sure most important: despite his first-hand knowledge of the terrors that beset the world, Jason Bourne has a conscience. He knows right from wrong, and acts accordingly—even when it flies in the face of his own government's position. He knows, for instance, that water-boarding is torture (having himself been subjected to it by the CIA).

Bourne is smart, no doubt, but he's no brooding liberal either: he's a military man driven to action by the un-American activities of his own government. Bourne proves out that you don't have to be a fan of Bill O'Reilly to be patriotic.

1. Which is, itself, French: "already seen". And related to amnesia...