Sour Grapes at SPIEGEL ONLINE

How does SPIEGEL ONLINE, Germany's left-left-wing online media outlet, cope with the TIME's "Person of the Year" award for President Bush?

Well - in a predictably denigrating fashion. I mean, what do you expect from German anti-American activists who pose as elite journalists?

Here's how TIME justifies the award for Bush:

"An ordinary politician tells swing voters what they want to hear; Bush invited them to vote for him because he refused to. Ordinary politicians need to be liked; Bush finds the hostility of his critics reassuring. Challengers run as outsiders, promising change; it's an extraordinary politician who tries this while holding the title Leader of the Free World. Ordinary Presidents have made mistakes and then sought to redeem themselves by admitting them; when Bush was told by some fellow Republicans that his fate depended on confessing his errors, he blew them off.

For candidates, getting elected is the test that counts. Ronald Reagan did it by keeping things vague: It's Morning in America. Bill Clinton did it by keeping things small, running in peaceful times on school uniforms and V chips. Bush ran big and bold and specific all at the same time, rivaling Reagan in breadth of vision and Clinton in tactical ingenuity. He surpassed both men in winning bigger majorities in Congress and the statehouses. And he did it all while conducting an increasingly unpopular war, with an economy on tiptoes and a public conflicted about many issues but most of all about him. (...)

For sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes—and ours—on his faith in the power of leadership, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year."

While TIME apparently doesn't agree with all of Bush's policies, they at least honor the man's determination and his leadership strength.

Not so, of course, SPIEGEL ONLINE:

"Heartfelt congratulations to US President George W. Bush for winning the prestigious Time magazine "Man of the Year" (sic! It's "Person of the Year", dummies!) award for the second time. We couldn't agree with Time's editors more. They say he won because of his successful re-election campaign (true) and his bold, uncompromising leadership (The Microsoft Word synonym for uncompromising? Stubborn. Can't argue there.) Then again, they also say he won because of his forthright connection with the American people. Here, we'd clash swords. Wasn't it Bush who spent much of his first term lying to the people about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? (...)

Bush joins an elite list of past world leaders who have been honored by Time. Each year since 1927 the magazine has singled out "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse." The list includes many past US presidents. It also features Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942) And Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran (1979).

Strangely, Bush -- known to prize loyalty and not to forgive easily -- told Time he doesn't want people to like him. "I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," he said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are." Does he want a list of names?"

Well, we could easily come up with a "list of names": Osama bin Laden, Gerhard Schroeder, Kim Il Yong, Jacques Chirac, just to name a few.

Oh, and someone else is winning awards:

"With the launch of SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL, SPIEGEL ONLINE brings you the best of Europe's leading newsmagazine and its award-winning Web site. ... With the launch of our international site, SPIEGEL finally brings its unique voice to English readers."

Truely unique, indeed.

Update: Thanks to Cox & Forkum, we have a nice visualization of certain aspects of the award... BTW, what's the democrat donkey holding in his left hand? One of the many Bush-bashing SPIEGEL issues?

(Click on pic to enlarge)

Comments

[Transatlantiker]

His critics seem to be growing lately

Poll: Most Americans Think Iraq War Not Worth Fighting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14266-2004Dec20.html

[Transatlantiker]

Btw, to put the German chancellor in a short list with 2 of the most vile political criminals... Chapeau indeed. You outdid yourself.

[Transcyberia]

You're right, Schröder lumped together with Chirac and Kim Jong-il, that's just mean. By the way, what happened to your old pseudonym, jo?

[Wuldorblogger]

@ Transatlantiker

You're following the good journalistic (US and European) tradition of only quoting opinion polls when they show results that are negative for Bush.
Overall approval of the war has shifted several times this year. But while there was always a big headline "Majority sees war as a mistake" whenever the majority shifted against the war, most often there was no headline at all when the public opinion turned around again.
The same with Bush's job approval: When it rose to or above 50 per cent, it was worth one paragraph hidden in an article somewhere. When he dropped one or two per cents, you could read headline after headline saying "Bush's popularity drops dramatically", "Bush at all-time low" etc.

Btw: Why do you disagree that Mr. Schröder and Mr. Chirac are critics of Mr. Bush? And why do you criticize their being named together with OBL and Mr. Kim, whereas you don't seem to mind that SPON mentions Hitler, Stalin and Khomeini in the context of Mr. Bush's nomination as "Person of the Year". You wouldn't want to tell me that they chose these "predecessors" randomly or else why didn't they choose to mention less negative examples? (E. g. Gorbachev, who - unlike Hitler, Stalin or Khomeini - was also chosen twice and so would have been a better choice.)

[Mike H.]

Wait a minute, didn't Schroder say that Kerry was going to win the presidency? TA is that a lie? He had all the best information didn't he? And Spiegel also, wasn't their information taken from the best minds in America? And your information, it is presently taken from the best minds in America isn't it? We'll wait for it to all, come true.

[Ramrod]

I haven't read much of Der Spiegel since I left Germany and the Army simultaneously, years ago. Now I know why.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

I think the four listed would be the four most prominent political figures critical of President Bush. Messrs. Arafat, Kerry, and Hussein previously qualified in the category but none are currently prominent, for individual reasons. An argument could be made to include several other ME figures on the list, such as Mr. Mubarrak and Mr. Allawi, but they have made their criticisms general to the US rather than specific to President Bush. Unlike the first four.

The comparison is not unfitting. As the Oil-for-Food numbers roll in, it appears that Chirac and Schroder may be responsible for the deaths of more innocent Iraqi children than Bush is of Iraqi combatants.

[Transatlantiker]

I don't know who jo is, I never had another pseudonym.
I do not defend SPON... they should indeed have mentioned other Men of the Year as well.
When Herta Däubler-Gmelin mentioned (a stupid remark), that, by threatening to attack Iraq, Bush wanted to distract from his domestic political problems as Hitler had, there was a big uproar.
She had not said that Bush was Hitler. She said that Bush had done one thing that Hitler also did (although nonsense).
If you say Schröder does the same thing as Bin Laden, you are doing the same association propaganda thing. Or Kohl who once made a Goebbels remark about Gorbachev he came to regret.
Or Rumsfeld, who lumped Germany together with Libya and Cuba for "not being helpful".

Assistan Village Idiot: Not the Oil for Food scandal caused the death of innocent Iraqi children, the UN sanctions did. Without Oil for Food, more children would have died because no food at all would have reached Iraq. To believe that dealing with dictators does not involve a good deal of corruption is naive. The Oil-for-Food Programme was established by the Security Council on 14 April 1995. Schroeder was not even in power then nor did he take any bribes from Saddam ever after.

Btw the U.S. bought Saddam's oil as well, and U.S. companies were involved in Oil for Food as well. Blackening out the names of U.S. companies in U.S. intelligence reports doesn't change that.

I don't remember Bill Clinton having better ideas at the time.

[Transatlantiker]

Not the only poll btw.

The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll: George W. Bush is the first incumbent president to drop to below 50 percent job approval one month after being re-elected. And only 36 percent of Americans think Donald Rumseld should stay on as Defense secretary, while 51 percent, an all-time high, say it was a mistake to go into Iraq.

@transatlantiker
your point being?
most Germans according to polls are against the Euro. Does that mean the Euro was a bad idea?
Oh heavens no, wouldn't want to question the holy European Union now would we?
A large number of 'Ossies' want the wall back, according to polls. Does that mean the reunification was a mistake?
Public opinion is fickle and not always right.
I have problems with Bush and Rumsfeld and co, but I still voted for them.
Lesser of the the two evils by far. (Kerry was a Depp, this coming from a lifelong Democrat)
And Clinton, the one that EUropeans LOVE,
was a DISASTER during the first couple of years in his first term in terms of public opinion.
But yet he was holy to the Europeans.

[Gabi]

Transatlantiker,
did you ever think about why Herta Deubler-Gmelin compared it to Hitler and not to anybody else? Clinton did it too and many others. Think about it and try again.

Shame on Herta Deubler-Gmelin. I find it disgusting when Germans use "Hitler" to judge others like the US and Israel. And shame on everybody who justifies this attitude.

[PacRim Jim]

Suggestion: Anytime someone compares a person to Hitler (née Schikelgruber), that person is, ipso facto, to be deemed a moron. Adoph H. was sui generis.

[Sock Puppet of Doom]

I don't think anyone has invoked Godwins Law but it's good to keep it in mind.

Though I voted for Bush I really am suprized at Time selecting him. I am not suprized at SPIEGEL ONLINE trashing Bush, It's part of their game.

[wanderprediger]

Guten Tag zusammen,
Wie die tobenden deutschen Bush-Kritiker argumentieren werden, war mir schon klar, bevor ich dieses Posting gesetzt habe ...
http://fuenf.scm-digital.net/foren/read.php?f=37&i=100702&t=100702
... und Spass verstehen sie anscheinend nur, wenn George W. Bush das Opfer ist. Wenn der deutsche Bush-Kritiker mal selbst vorgeführt wird, wird er schnell dienstlich ;-)
MfG
wanderprediger

[Joe N.]

What I really like is SPON's small photo gallery where they found an old photo from the campaign of Bush's face sweating - I'm sure they couldn't wait to use that one. It reminds me of what the old eastern block press would do to make Brezhnev look virile and anyone else look haggard.

No - the pest one is title "Europe and the US are planets apart." They use a NASA file photo, something Europeans are at great pains to have done anything to produce themselves, not to mention the fact that the file photo is the output of American ingenuity, committment, and hard work. Amusing.

Their "Germany walking a tightrope between the US and Russia is especially picante, since Schroeder located poles and calculated the length of that tightrope. There is virtually no mention of the role Germany plays in distancing itself from both parties. Clearly it represents an unconcience need for attention...

[gramps]

Well, we could easily come up with a "list of names": Osama bin Laden, Gerhard Schroeder, Kim Il Yong, Jacques Chirac, just to name a few.

I would like to add Jack the Ripper, Attilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Joshka Fischer, Pol Pot, Ivan the Terrible, Billy the Kid to this list.

[Kees Rudolf]

@PacRimJim,
Good suggestion. One can indeed safely assume that someone who compares a person to Hitler is a moron, but this is in my view because people who make this comparison usually don't know what they are talking about, rather than because Hitler was 'sui generis'. Of course Hitler was 'sui generis', quite obviously, but, basically, every individual person is unique in some sense, hence sui generis, and at the same time sharing certain general characteristics with other individual persons. Even identical twins are different in some respects, while, on the other hand, very different persons always have at least something in common. Though one can never equate a person with an other person, in the sense of calling them identical in all respects, one can always compare them, in the sense of drawing attention to a similarity in some respects. So, in spite of Hitlers' being 'sui generis', there is in principle not necessarily anything wrong with comparing persons even to Hitler. If a comparison of a person to Hitler is drawing attention to a quite specific similarity between that person and Hitler, and if it is based upon a thorough knowledge not only of who Hitler really was, but also of who the person compared to Hitler really is, it could even be illuminating. (Just a logical possibility.)

[Dave Schuler]

Hmmm. “Unique”, eh? Isn't that from the Latin unus meaning one, equus meaning horse?

[Joe]

Fortunately, America policy is not run by opinion polls. We call this leadership. That is what the American people did in November, they elected a leader. I would be the first to point out not everyone is pleased with all the decisions that have been made or that continue to be made but at least we have someone who is willing to made the hard decisions that must be made to protect our future.

Though I've nothing particularly against Bush, I'm afraid that the credibility of this particular prize was somewhat damaged by its nominating Hitler and Stalin in two successive years. It's good publicity for Time, of course, but that's all it is.

[Eric Anondson]

"I'm afraid that the credibility of this particular prize was somewhat damaged by its nominating Hitler and Stalin in two successive years."

What?

It's damaged because of that now?

"Oil for Food was created because those sanctions that were supposed to make Saddam comply with the resolutions of the UNSC did actually hurt him a lot less than the Iraqi population that had no way to remove Saddam."

Uh. The Oil for Food program made it easy for Saddam to subvert it into becoming a bribery scheme with which Saddam would also use the program to bring in supplies directly to rebuild/fortify palaces and his military. The UN Oil for Food program did kill kids by knowingly letting Saddam subvert the program away from delivering supplies to the intended target.

It is similar to the UN sanctions that way. Supplies were kept from the innocent under both schemes. Some supplies were let through in the Oil for Food program, but it also did palpable damage by facillitating Saddam's construction of fortified "palaces" and weapons research programs.

[Pato]

This SPON article seems as childish as most of the crap the junior hacks puts out.
In July of '04 fwance's Liberation has "Bush-the Man who ruined our year" on it's cover.
Now Time has Bush as "Man of the Year".
6 months later france continues to sink into psycho-socio and economic hellhole all on it's own. Germany as france's side-kick, fairs no better. Lets move forward to ANOTHER year from now and see who is more further ruined, be it the US, france or germany.
Keep in mind that Liberation's cover ran just 10 months after 15,000 french died at home, with their kids and doctors out playing at the new welfare funded beach at the river seine.
Who is trying to fool whom here? and for what?
Whose hearts can bleed for these second rate (couldn't make it anywhere else) journalistic hacks with such poor writing skills and such sourness? It is just the type of writing that these people do, and the agenda they seek that propelled Bush into office.
These clowns would be folding napkins at the local falafel shop if the tax payer didn't subsidize them.

Oil for food also hurt iraqis in that it allowed for the importation of bad, spoiled or just plain bad medicine as high quality. Who know how many died because of this tainted, sub-standard product. The spread between the cost of good and substandard medicine was then siphoned off by Saddam or his surrogates.

[Caillou]

Trying to Bridge A Great Divide. By NICHOLAS LE QUESNE
Ramadan's chosen task is to invent an independent European Islam ...

http://www.time.com/time/innovators/spirituality/profile_ramadan.html

"Great Innovator" according to TIME. So, frankly, I don't give much for their choice.

[Mitch]

@Transatlantiker -- There were a lot of crickets in Kosovo and Bosnia, too. Did you enjoy listening to their chirping?

The US is kind of busy right now, but we put pressure on Sudan to end the fighting in the south of that country, and it seems to be working. The Darfur crisis is much smaller, a good crisis to practice on. Maybe the Arabs could stop a genocide against their fellow Muslims? Maybe the EU could stop talking and chamber a round? No? I thought not. Unless you plan to do something, shut up about what isn't being done.

[Joe N.]

You realize that the Oil-for-food program was established just to placate do-gooders. All it did was make permanent a maintainable state of misery. Without it the Baathist regime would have collapsed quickly.
The Iraqis could have deposed that filthy dictator and gotten on with their lives.

"Wait a minute, didn't Schroder say that Kerry was going to win the presidency? TA is that a lie? He had all the best information didn't he? And Spiegel also, wasn't their information taken from the best minds in America? And your information, it is presently taken from the best minds in America isn't it?"

When and where did Schroeder or SPON say he will win ?

"Unless you plan to do something, "

Like cleaning up the mess in Afghanistan or having troops in Sudan?

[Joe]

You mean Germany is deploying troops to the Sudan. That was not in the media here..

That is really great. Now this is the actions of a nation who should be on the UNSC.

[Mitch]

Assuming the nameless post was TA, did you mean this mess in Afghanistan? Thanks for the offer, but the mess seems to be cleaning itself up. The first elections in its history, women with civil rights, warlords going into retirement -- there are a lot of places on this sorry globe that aspire to the condition of such a mess.

Troops to Sudan? Why not? The current government has been officially condemned by the US government as committing genocide. Please refer to the UN convention on genocide for the implications of this. In brief, it puts that government outside the normal protections of sovereignity, treating the Sudanese government as the equivalent of pirates and subject to the laws of whoever can lay hands on them. The EU has not made a similar finding, nor has the UN. Maybe if it were Israelis or Americans in charge of the massacres, things would be different. As it is, I hear the stridulations of the crickets.

[James]

@Transatlantiker

Right now there is another creeping genocide going on in Darfur. I hear crickets chirping but not much more.

I recall that the US Sec of State Powell traveled to the Sudan and later called it Genocide. If genocide has been estabilished by the UN, clearly a definition our country seeks, than the UN, by its own charter MUST ACT. The EU said, "there was no evidence of genocide in Darfur." Only the Europeans and the Chinese are interested in not acting. The prior not acting, because either they can't, won't (or both) or don't know how or choose to spin words instead of action (Europes favorite inaction - see Bosnia). The Chinese will not act or vote accordingly in the UN because they seek to enhance their security on the oil resources of the country, like they have recently done in oil deals with Iran.

Considering that you choose to shamelessly mock the situation, you really have no moral clarity on the subject. By doing so, you dishonor the people that your country has killed and those who continue to die under similar circumstances.

Perhaps the crickets chirped most loudly in Germany, but Powell heard over them from Washington. They must be European crickets.

[Joe]

If one does not see evil, one does not have to take action. To take action requires both a sense of morality and an assumption of responsiblity.

History provides clear examples of how the french and Germans view both of these. Therefore the EU has no other option but to say nothing is going on in the Sudan.

[Junge]

sry forgot the name at my last post

@ Joe:
German troops are supporting the AMIS Mission.

@Mitch:
"Thanks for the offer, but the mess seems to be cleaning itself up. "
Actually there are more german than american troops in afghanistan right now.

[Joe]

Junge,

You truly have had too much Christmas cheer. I have to assume this is what big German MSM is telling you.

You are very funny guy....LOL