Davids Medienkritik

WMD: The Dishonesty of German Politics

A Wall Street Journal report, referring to several articles (1, 2, 3) in SPIEGEL:

Curveball Revisited
March 29, 2008

In the long history of U.S. intelligence fiascos, few have been as minutely examined as the "Curveball" episode – the source whose fraudulent claims were largely responsible for the pre-Iraq War view that Saddam Hussein possessed biological weapons. So it's worth noting what a new, remarkable report from the German magazine Der Spiegel tells us about the spy who lied.

According to media legend, Curveball was a creation of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who headed the exiled Iraqi National Congress before Saddam's overthrow. That notion was destroyed in 2005 with the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report on intelligence. But the myth persists in many circles that, through Curveball, Mr. Chalabi had conned his neocon friends, who in turn had conned President Bush, who in turn had pressured a reluctant but spineless CIA into giving him the "intelligence" he needed to make the case for war.

But Curveball was nobody's stooge. On the contrary, he is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, an opportunistic Iraqi asylum-seeker who came to Germany in 1999. His claims to having inside knowledge of Saddam's illicit weapons program quickly made him a prized asset of Germany's intelligence service, the BND. So convinced were the Germans of the reliability of his information that in the fall of 2001 they purchased 35 million doses of smallpox vaccine for fear of what Saddam might be cooking up.

More remarkable is that even after September 11 – when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder promised "infinite solidarity" with the U.S. – the German government refused to allow the CIA to interview Curveball in person. Often, the Germans resorted to dishonest pretexts for their lack of cooperation, such as that Curveball didn't speak English, when in fact he spoke it fluently (and as if nobody in the CIA spoke German or Arabic). "It was a blockade that made

SPIEGEL ONLINE's Perverse Iraq Photo Gallery

To mark the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War, SPIEGEL ONLINE has spewed forth a flurry of articles as predictable as they are shrill. The most recent installment is a piece complete with a 50-photo picture gallery entitled: "The Pictures of the Iraq Catastrophe: Panorama of the Perverse".

What makes this gallery truly perverse is its total omission of Saddam Hussein's twenty-four year reign of war and terror - a period that could - in fact - accurately be labelled "Iraq's Catastrophe." This conspicuous omission - the fact that German media elites once again fail to remind German readers of the horror of modern-day dictatorship while bashing ideological enemies in the United States - reminds us that they have learned far less about confronting despotism than they would have us all believe.   

SPIEGEL ONLINE Again Speaks with Two Tongues

Interestingly enough, there is a similar photo gallery on the SPIEGEL ONLINE English site that does show Saddam's victims. It also shows more about Saddam's capture and fewer Rambo-style images of US troops. Why the different presentation in German versus English? Why won't SPIEGEL ONLINE acknowledge Saddam's victims to its German readers? Why are US troops presented more negatively in German?

Finally - there is almost never any historic perspective when it comes to US military losses. Every loss is one too many, but there were single days in the Second World War in which the United States lost more men that it loses on average in a year of war in Iraq (roughly 800 to 900). And yet - the far left media continues to insist that America can't sustain such losses - and far too seldom is their credibility called into question for doing so.

Endnote: Somehow there is not nearly the level enthusiasm at SPIEGEL ONLINE when it comes to reporting how another greedy European conglomerate admitted its guilt in greasing the bloody palms of the Saddam regime for a little profit in the UN Oil-for-Food scandal. Of course - there's nothing terribly perverse about that...right?   

America's New Berlin Correspondent: Germany a Nation of Nazis, Bloodsuckers, Prostitutes, Alcoholism and Hopelessness...

Let's face it: Media tend to over-report the most vile and extreme aspects of our society. "If it bleeds - it leads" is much more than a cliche - it is a journalistic fact of life. The danger with the daily sensationalism is that it skews the viewer's perception of reality. In other words, a viewer is apt to believe that the world around him is a much more rotten than it actually is.

Interesting thought experiment: What if you were a foreign correspondent...?

Imagine you are an American correspondent in Germany. You are encouraged by your editors to report only the most extreme, outrageous, strange and dark sides of German society. Your publication chooses to ignore the 97% of issues that bring Germans and Americans together and instead focus on the 3% that most divide the two nations - such as attitudes towards prostitution, social welfare, guns, etc. This seedy sensationalism sells - and that is exactly what your editors are after. For that reason, they also strongly encourage you to write whatever you can on Neo-Nazi violence - not because the issue is genuinely troubling - (and it is) - but because it brings good ratings and reaffirms your readership's dark stereotypes of the Vaterland.

Beyond that - your editors oblige you to bring stories only on a narrow band of pet issues that they have predetermined are of "interest" to the readership. (In fact, you may have been specially selected for your job because you have an ideological propensity to dislike Germany and favor stories that make Germany look bad.) When you arrive in Berlin, you discover that Germany isn't quite the awful place you expected and - because you are a free spirit - the urge is great to report on the many complex aspects of German society. Predictably, however, your editors discourage any independent ideas that might shed a different (you might say balanced) light on things.

The pet issues and big politics are all they want. In particular, the editors want to demonstrate that Germany is a nation infatuated with pornography, cursed by extreme alcoholism and blighted by racist attitudes towards non-Germans. Every other week - if things are slow - the boss pressures you to bring a story on another hopeless unemployed wretch in East-Berlin desperate to get out of the country. He just won't publish your more "upbeat" stories or even critical stories that fall outside the narrow band of pet issues.

The editors supplement your work by sprinkling-in stories cut-and-pasted from news wires on Germans behaving badly worldwide. You eventually realize that intellectual honesty takes a distant backseat to the pet-issue template devised by your editors. Making Germans and Germany look bad at all costs - to reaffirm the stereotypes and political leanings of readers - is no longer something you can question without risking your job.

One week - your publication runs a cover depicting a giant spider drapped in a German flag and wearing lederhosen sucking the blood of a lifeless blue collar American trapped in its web. You realize that this crude reference to recent lay-offs of American automobile workers by a large German multinational is appalling and unfair. The cover sparks a slew of hateful and irrational letters-to-the-editor by readers. You want to speak out against what you now believe is hate-mongering for profit - but again - you fear for your job.

Not surprisingly, the most "self-critical" Germans - those with a particular talent for shamelessly bashing their own nation and people - are held up as heroic dissenters and showered with awards by your publication and others like it.

Finally - because quite a few other publications share the same general ideology of your own and follow the same pattern of reporting - it is not beyond the pale for your editors to proclaim that you represent the "mainstream" of American media and that you are largely fair and unbiased in reporting on Germany.

Turn the mirror around...

Now let us turn this script around. The above is a reflection of how certain influential segments of German media have operated for years now. The latest Amerika-Korrespondent for Stern magazine - Jan Christoph Wiechmann - offers an excellent example. One of his more recent articles is entitled: "Weapons Trade in the USA: An AR-15 with your Coffee?" The opening paragraph reads:

"In Europe one usually receives a cookie with their coffee. In the USA it is an assault rifle: In the Texan solitude, waitresses with highly teased hair offer the things for sale in weapon shops camouflaged as cafes. Normal daily life in Bush-Country."

The article paints a picture of daily life in the USA that is neither typical nor normal. Yet the author intentionally presents the extreme as the ordinary - not because it represents an accurate reflection of typical daily life in the United States - but because it is sure to sell and re-affirm the deeply-held stereotypes of "Stern" readers. Further, Wiechmann cleverly selects a subject - or perhaps his editors selected it for him - that has long been a favorite pet issue of left-leaning German media for years.

Another recent example is an article, entitled "US Tourist Collapses During Sex - Dead," that appeared in SPIEGEL ONLINE on an American who died after overdosing on a potency drug while engaging in sex tourism in Thailand. Certainly - had the tourist in question been Dutch, Brazilian, Russian or German - this article probably would not have made it onto the SPON website. Fellow blogger Joerg of Atlantic Review - who brought this article to my attention - hit the nail on the head:

"If it had been a German tourist, it might not have made news on Spiegel. Or maybe it would have been, if at least the pills were American."

Why is this piece newsworthy at all? The answer is simple: It offers SPIEGEL readers another choice opportunity to look down on Americans.

Looking at the larger picture...

The long-standing media patterns described above - when combined with the sort of ugly and exploitative political opportunism that marked the Schroeder re-election campaign of 2002 - serve to transform the fault lines that represent honest German-American differences of opinion (on questions such as Iraq, trade, the role of the state, etc.) into gaping chasms of misunderstanding and mutual abuse. This leads to the sort of self-reinforcing media-political feeding frenzy that we saw from 2002 to 2005, a period that produced some of the most ugly and irrational manifestations of anti-Americanism in the history of democratic Germany.

Fortunately, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have made it evident that it is possible to disagree with the United States without tapping into the overflowing keg of anti-American sentiment - fueled by the media tendencies outlined above - in their respective nations. As a result of the political changes at the very top, the level of media vitriol has ebbed over the past year or two. It is important to remember - however - that the group of people calling the shots in the German media in 2002 and 2003 are essentially still running the show today. Given the right political conditions and the media's tendency to follow larger political patterns, they would gladly return to the high-pitched anti-American hysteria that flooded German media only a few years ago.

Endnote: Allow us to offer that there is certainly some of what we describe above in American media as relates to Germany - though on a much smaller scale. It is true that some Americans still associate Germany primarily with Nazism, beer or lederhosen. If anything, however, the American media pays far too little attention to foreign issues - and it is the lack of attention to Germany and Europe that is far more troubling.

Der Spiegel on the Dollar: Exaggeration, Sensationalism and Bipolarity

Here's a question for you: Do you remember seeing an extreme cover like this at Der Spiegel when the Euro was weak just a few years back?

            Dollar Nosedive: The Downfall of the US Currency and the Dangers for the World Economy

Not only did Der Spiegel not run a derisive cover on the Euro currency in its weaker days - it virtually gushed-over with propaganda-like enthusiasm at its introduction:

           Der Spiegel in 2002: Euroland The New Money Power

Viewed in isolation - the Dollar cover might not be considered anti-American. Given the larger body of work of Der Spiegel over the past decade - however - it is difficult to characterize the "Dollar Nosedive" cover as anything but a further manifestation of the festering Hate-America bias that plagues the magazine.

Exaggeration and Sensationalism

Particularly dubious is the use of extreme vocabulary including "downfall" and "dangers". All too often, we have seen Spiegel highlight isolated or temporary problems with the American economy in an effort to convince readers that the overall US economy was on the verge of disaster and collapse. One need only recall the infamous article on unemployment in Kannapolis, North Carolina or the exaggerated claims that the American power grid was on the brink of collapse when the lights went out in New York or the claims that the US infrastructure was in "collapse" after the Minnesota bridge incident.

Euro-Nationalism as Substitute for Forbidden German Nationalism

At the same time, Der Spiegel has repeatedly avoided heaping the same sort of scorn or using the same extreme tone in highlighting the various troubles of the European economy, power grid and infrastructure despite relatively similar conditions (a weak Euro not too long ago) and incidents (power outages, train crashes, faulty infrastructure). Instead - when publishing covers on Europe - they've repeatedly engaged in overt cheerleading - (just compare these covers to these covers). Let's not forget SPIEGEL ONLINE's primative excitement when a Eurofighter apparently defeated two F-15s in a mock battle. This thinly veiled Euro-Nationalism is desirable and useful - in part - as an acceptable alternate outlet (along with large sporting events) for forbidden German feelings of national pride. Unfortunately, the Euro-Nationalism of publications such as Der Spiegel almost always counts anti-Americanism as one of its key ingredients.

Perhaps Der Spiegel could - just once - run a story on America's remarkably low unemployment rate (and the jobs it has created for millions of legal and illegal immigrants) despite record high oil prices. But let's not forget - that would call into question the carefully crafted ideological caricature of the United States as hopeless social wasteland and home to predatory global capitalism.

Bipolar Journalism

Of course one can never underestimate the bipolar inconsistency inevitably on display at Der Spiegel. (Eventually what is reported must - in some way - conform with reality - after all.) In 1999, one cover asking if Europe was a new superpower was followed only weeks later by another cover asking whether Europe could still be salvaged. The extreme contradiction can only be explained by the magazine's habitual use of the extreme to sell magazines combined with the publication's utter lack of intellectual consistency. This is nothing new - and we have seen the same sort of journalistic manic-depression on Iraq in recent weeks and months - with reporting swinging like a pendulum between utter doom and gloom - including a cover declaring the Iraq war "lost" - and reports detailing progress in Iraq and the alleged comeback of the Bush Presidency.

Der Spiegel in a Journalistic Nosedive?

The record lows experienced by the Dollar are unquestionably significant for the world economy. Unfortunately, a factual analysis of the economic advantages and disadvantages of a weaker Dollar has been obscured by the blinding light of media hyperbole and anti-American sentiment at Der Spiegel. This potent combination has worked to sell millions of magazines in the past - and there is no doubt that it will continue to sell millions of magazines in the future - as a significant segment of the German population continues to indulge its voracious appetite for virtually anything that casts the United States in a negative light.

In the case of Der Spiegel's journalistic standards - it would be quite tempting to characterize them as being in a "nosedive." That would not - however - do the magazine justice. One must, after all, attain an altitude slightly above gutter-level to first make such a drop-off possible. 

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Miserly Bush Deprives Poor Children of Health Care

Some of you may have seen this SPIEGEL ONLINE piece today - entitled "Bush Stops Assistance to Poor Children".

Of course for our friends at SPIEGEL, no social program is unworthy and nothing Bush does could ever be right. So the natural spin is Bush is out to get poor children and deprive them of social benefits - allegedly because they are "too expensive."

Naturally, the crack team of journalists at SPIEGEL ONLINE didn't bother to report this statement made by the President, explaining his decision:

"I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system. I do want Republicans and Democrats to come together to support a bill that focuses on the poorer children," the president said, adding the government's policy should be to help people find private insurance."

Instead of delving into both sides of the debate and analyzing the issue in all its complexity - Bush is assigned the usual role of unfeeling villain and enemy of all that is good, right and "social" in the world. The mandatory smear photo ist auch dabei...

Bush Sneering - A Common Photo Motif at SPIEGEL ONLINE

Poor Children?

In fact, as David Harnasch correctly points out in this excellent German language post, Bush argues that the bill in question unnecessarily extends a government program to provide benefits to middle class children - many of whom already have insurance - in effect creating an entitlement for the middle class and furthering the creep towards socialized medicine. Instead, Bush argues that a bill should be passed to focus on helping families in need find private insurance for their children. In other words - there is a fundamental debate about the role of government and whether the public or private sector should be relied on more to deliver health care to the children in question.

Unfortunately, SPIEGEL ONLINE bypasses the debate and goes for the ideologically satisfying oversimplification: Bush is Bad.

In other words, the publication fundamentally fails to acknowledge that both sides of the debate genuinely want to help children in need with health care - yet fundamentally disagree on the role of government in finding the best solution. Instead, SPIEGEL ONLINE clearly implies that one side is essentially out to harm children by stopping them from getting care. Sadly, this reinforcement of existing ideological bias is par for the course in their reporting on the United States.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Another Smear Photo - Another Perversion of the Facts

(...Or the War over Vietnam and Historic Revisionism...)

Skimming the web - I came across this typical smear photo on SPIEGEL ONLINE. It is one of hundreds selected over the years by various members of the media to firmly reinforce the stereotype of Bush as the arrogant-stupid-religious-zealot:

Bush with cross in background: A popular motif at SPIEGEL...

Later I received an email from our reader Helian with the following observations on the SPIEGEL ONLINE article in question, entitled: "Bush's Vietnam Comparison Outrages Democrats and Ex-Military":

"According to the article...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: "The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

Historical consistency has never been a strong point for SPIEGEL magazine or SPIEGEL ONLINE - but this is shocking:

Just look at this article.

After years of calling Iraq a disaster, debacle and quagmire, SPIEGEL ONLINE has decided to declare the following:

"The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

This all stems from last week's Der SPIEGEL magazine cover feature article by Ullrich Fichtner: An enormous, fascinating and remarkably honest report on the complex situation in Iraq. (The first link above in bolded-italics leads to the English translation of that report.) SPIEGEL ONLINE is also publishing Fichtner's report that US troops are in a remarkably good mood and have high morale. That also flies directly in the face of past SPIEGEL reporting that consistently depicted US troops as demoralized, depressed, defeated, prone to suicide and suffering from low morale.

As a long-time observer of the publication, my first reaction to reading this on SPIEGEL ONLINE was: Are they on drugs?! - this directly contradicts everything they've reported for the past four years! My second reaction was: Have they finally gotten off the drugs?! Maybe reality is finally starting to sink in!

Keep in mind that less than a year ago, Der SPIEGEL published a magazine cover (depicted below) declaring Iraq a "Lost War".

Power and Lies: George W. Bush and the Lost War in Iraq

Is this abrupt about-face cynical hedging - or a genuine (and extremely sudden) change of heart? We would speculate that SPIEGEL editors have finally reached the realization that the version of reality they have painstakingly crafted for the German public since the conflict began - one of failure, disaster, debacle and quagmire for the Americans in Iraq - is no longer tenable when compared to the facts on the ground and will ultimately collapse on their heads like a flimsy house of cards. But with many American Democrats still in full irrational disaster-mode on Iraq (despite obvious recent improvement with the surge) this seems a somewhat unusual and perhaps premature move. Only time will tell...

This much we can say: For once - SPIEGEL has truly done something unpredictable in terms of its USA and Iraq coverage.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson offers outstanding analysis that may - at least in part - explain what is going on at SPIEGEL. Excerpt:

"Yet the universal human desire to be associated in the here and now with the assumed winning side — and to shun perceived defeat — trumps them all. Throughout this war, that natural urge explains most of the volatile and shifting views of our politicians, pundits and media as they scramble to readjust to the up-and-down daily news from Iraq.

And so it is with the latest positioning about the surge that to a variety of observers seems successful — at least for now."

Read the whole thing. (Via Instapundit)

SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Collapse of the US Infrastructure"

It wasn't entirely unpredictable. When the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, we at Medienkritik realized it was only a matter of time before members of the German media would attempt to interpret the tragedy much as they interpreted the New York power outage several years ago: As a sign that America is in a state of total collapse and decay.

After the New York Power Outage, SPIEGEL Published this cover: World Power Without Power: Appearances and Reality in the USA (2003) - The Reaction to the Bridge Collapse has been Predictably Similar...

Well - we didn't have to wait long for the disingenuous sensationalism to materialize. SPIEGEL ONLINE's Marc Pitzke - the anti-American hack-of-hacks - quickly came out with a piece that headlines: "Collapse of the US Infrastructure." The article features a seven-part photo series entitled: "US Infrastructure: Decayed, Ailing, Defective."

Not only is this headline beyond constructive criticism - it is more of the same cynical bashing that we have grown accustomed to in German media. It is nothing more than the usual - cheap and arrogant - hatred that German media consumers keep slurping down and sucking up. Deep down people like Marc Pitzke want to prove to themselves - at a highly visceral, ideological level - that the American system of capitalism is inherently inferior to their own statist, socialist model. So any opportunity to claim that America is in a state of total decay and collapse is taken with great relish. (No - this has nothing to do with just reporting the plain facts.)

Little context and little desire to engage in constructive criticism have become the rule and not the exception in much of the German media coverage of the United States. Disgusting but true...

SPIEGEL magazine covers - 1997 to 2006. Representative of the magazine's "objective" coverage of the United States over the past decade...

Endnote: Ironically, Minnesota - the state responsible for maintaining the bridge - is (along with Vermont and Massachusetts) perhaps the most ideologically in tune with Europe in terms of favoring left-leaning social, political and economic policies. Nonetheless - the German media will certainly find some way to drum up the usual charge: This is all Bush's fault.

More "Constructive" Criticism of the US from the German Left

There has been a small uproar of late among German media and political elites about plans of the United States to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Israel and others to counter-balance the influence of Iran. Just yesterday, SPIEGEL ONLINE reported criticism coming from Germany's Social-Democrat (SPD) Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier. The day before, the same publication reported that the SPD's Karsten Voigt, the German government's "Coordinator for German-American Cooperation" was outraged by the proposed arms deal. 

Just more constructive criticism coming from America's concerned allies and friends?

Well, consider this: Mr. Voigt and Mr. Steinmeier were both key members of Gerhard Schroeder's government right up until he was voted out of office in 2005. In fact, Mr. Voigt held the very same job that he holds now. Interestingly enough, both Steinmeier and Voigt were remarkably silent when Chancellor Schroeder proposed lifting the EU's arms embargo on Communist China just two years ago. There was none of the impassioned talk of democracy or fear of arms races back then from either Voigt or Steinmeier. (Of course after Schroeder left office - and it became politically expedient to do so - Steinmeier changed course - but only after China made aggressive threats against Taiwan.)

So what - other than the fact that it is politically profitable to bash the United States and Bush - could be driving the Social Democrat's sudden barrage of vocal criticism?  Could this have anything to do with the fact that they are tanking in the polls and need something - anything - to grasp onto and rally the base?

Democrat Tom Lantos Implies Gerhard Schroeder is Lower than "Political Prostitute"

(By Ray Drake)

UPDATE #2: Watch it on YouTube. The crowd was not shocked - they loved the speech - a must watch. Thanks to Joerg of Atlantic Review.

UPDATE: As our readers correctly note, SPIEGEL ONLINE fails to mention two key facts about Lantos: He is a Democrat and a Holocaust survivor. Had he been a Republican - they would have highlighted it in caps along with his ultra-tight best-cowboy-buddies relationship to President Bush. Instead, he is referred to as a "US representative", a "US politician", and "Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee." But hey - let's be fair - SPIEGEL ONLINE did mention one key personal detail about Lantos to the German audience: He is originally from eastern Europe (you know - that region so many Germans love and respect) - Hungary to be exact. Bottom line: SPIEGEL ONLINE omits the two facts that give Lantos moral authority with their readers (Democrat - Holocaust survivor) and emphasizes the fact that he is from the "US." 

Let's put it this way - had Lantos been a Republican - this would have been a front-page headline throughout German media. The reaction would have been far more violent and outraged. Furthermore, the blame would have quickly been associated with Bush.

Main article: After hearing California Representative Tom Lantos' recent comments on former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, it is rather obvious that Schroeder, now a well-compensated employee at Gazprom, is fervently disliked on both sides of the American political aisle. These comments, as reported here, speak for themselves:

"Speaking at the dedication ceremony for a victims of communism memorial in Washington, Lantos said their departure from the European scene heralded a closer relationship in the Atlantic alliance, which was badly splintered over Washington's decision to launch the invasion of Iraq without strong European support.

Lantos' remarks reflected the lingering bitterness over French and German opposition to the war, as he recalled how the US saved Europe from fascism and protected it from communism for generations. He said the two leaders had turned their backs to the US and its fight against the next wave of tyranny, Islamic fascism.

The congressman then provoked gasps of amusement and surprise in the crowd of several hundred when he said he would like to call Schroeder 'a political prostitute, now that he's taking big cheques from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected.'

During his final weeks in office in 2005, Schroeder signed an agreement between Germany and Russia to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to supply gas directly to Germany.

After leaving office, he became chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline, which is 51-per-cent owned by Russian state natural gas company Gazprom - a move that provoked outrage in Germany.

Russia has used its energy reserves as a political chip in its continuing bid for hegemony in eastern Europe, and has come under severe criticism for repression of press and other freedoms."

Lantos is also probably quite frustrated at Germany's continuing lack of serious commitment in Afghanistan, where the US, UK and Canada have absorbed around 85% of the fatalities - despite the fact that the operation is a supposedly "multilateral" undertaking.

But consider this - one could argue that Mr. Lantos' words are a bit harsh. They certainly weren't terribly diplomatic. But then, how would the German and US media react if George W. Bush made a billion dollar pipeline deal with - say - a major energy player like Exxon or LukOil towards the end of his second term and then accepted a lucrative position at the same company just three weeks after leaving office? Would the rhetoric be any softer than that of Mr. Lantos?

Think about it...

Endnote: Commenter Helian has this to say:

"So you thought you'd seen the ultimate in hypocrisy?  Guess again!!  Check out this story. It seems that Representative Tom Lantos, a Democrat no less, gave vent to some less than charitable remarks at the expense of booster seat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at the recent unveiling ceremony of a new Washington monument dedicated to the victims of Communism. In fine, he declared that, if not for the fact that he was loathe to so grossly insult the prostitutes of his district, he would describe the diminutive anti-American hate exploiter as a "political whore."

But wait! It gets better. It seems that a certain Ulrich Wilhelm, described as a spokesman for the German government, "clearly and decisively" rejected the comparison of Schroeder with a whore, a sentiment with which any self-respecting hooker must certainly concur. Schoolmarm Wilhelm was, apparently, quite upset about Lantos' "unmannerly mode of referring to a former Chancellor of the German Federal Republic." Apparently the "mannerly mode" for referring to Chancellors prescribed by the current German incarnation of Emily Post is drastically different from the "mannerly mode" of referring to U.S. Presidents. Just ask Ms. Wieszorek-Zeul, whom SPON would, no doubt, describe as an "expert" in such matters.

What can you say? When the hypocrisy gets this thick, you can't really react with scorn. It's too ludicrous. All you can do is laugh."

And let's not forget this about Gerhard Schroeder: He continues to insist that Vladimir Putin is a "flawless democrat." Now if that isn't political prostitution - what is?