In the episode, budget cuts at Springfield Elementary School force the janitor Groundskeeper Willie to be used as a French teacher. Expressing his disdain for French people, he exclaims to his class: "Bonjour, you cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys." This quote, particularly the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", has since been more widely used. It was used particularly in the run-up to the war in Iraq, having been popularized by the right-wing "National Review" journalist Jonah Goldberg, to describe European and especially French opposition to military action. It was once noted that the phrase was "made acceptable in official diplomatic channels around the globe". Ben Macintyre has written that the phrase is "perhaps the most famous" of the show's coinages and since Goldberg's usage it "has gone on to become a journalistic cliché."