A Spiegel Catalog of Anti-Americanism
This colorful array of lurid, America-baiting covers from the weekly Der Spiegel was produced by the peerless critics of the German media at the Davids Medienkritik website. They were provoked by a Spiegel reporter's article, "Crisis in the Middle East," that began, "The escalation in violence in the Middle East calls for U.S. leadership." This was a surprise, to say the least, from a magazine that usually spreads the America-as-Devil gospel.
Correctly terming this a "classic of the America-and-Bush-can-do-no-right genre," Medienkritik correspondent "Ray D." (the site is produced by pseudonymous contributors) asked, What about the Europeans? "Where are Germany's master diplomats? Aren't we supposed to solve the world's crises through the U.N. and other multilateral channels and not rely on unilateralist cowboys? Kofi? Javier? Joschka . . . ?"
"Ray" then drew readers' attention to the, uh, pattern in Spiegel's coverage of U.S. affairs, as evidenced in the habitually sensational covers. "According to Spiegel," he notes, "Americans are warmongers, mercenaries, cowboys, Rambos, religious nuts and conceited bungling occupiers who have created a catastrophe-disaster-debacle-quagmire-civil war in the Middle East." And now they call for U.S. leadership. "Could it be that the United States really is a positive force in the world and not the summation of vile stereotypes and chronic biases displayed on German newsstands?"
Here, for the benefit of our non-German speaking readers, is a rough translation of the covers, starting in the upper left corner: Blood for Oil; The Conceited Superpower; The New World Order; World Power without Energy; Operation Rambo; America's Dishonor; Masters of the World; Bush's Vietnam; The Torturers of Baghdad; America's Air War in Afghanistan and the Ghost of Vietnam; On a Mission from God; Leap without Looking; The Next War; Superpower in Quicksand; The (Little) Sheriff; The Hapless Superpower; Will America Become Democratic?; The Neverending War."
The full rant can be found at medienkritik.typepad.com.
Typhoid Jack's Latest Casualty
As the political calendar lumbers toward November, last week's Georgia primary election produced some intriguing--and important--results. For one, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the noted conspiracy theorist, who made national news most recently after engaging in a scuffle with a Capitol Police officer, was forced into a runoff election against her Democratic challenger, Henry C. "Hank" Johnson Jr., to be held August 8.
For another, Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and Time magazine cover model, lost his first campaign for public office, to be the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, by a whopping 12 percentage points. Back in early 2005, when Reed first made it clear he would run for the post, victory seemed like a sure thing. But that was before this past January, when Reed's longtime friend and sometime business associate, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to mail fraud, tax evasion, wire fraud, and conspiracy.
Earlier in the decade, it turned out, Abramoff's Indian casino clients had paid Reed more than $4 million to gin up "grassroots support" for antigambling initiatives that would insulate them from competition and increase their profits. That Reed had been a longtime opponent of casino gambling did not prevent him from accepting the tribes' payments--and he didn't seem to regret taking the money, either, until the press began to look more closely at his self-dealing. In the end, Reed's campaign became one long apology for his association with Abramoff, as his primary opponent, veteran state senator Casey Cagle, hounded him with accusations of corruption and hypocrisy.
Which leaves us with the number three: The three men so far--Rep. Tom DeLay (ret.), former White House procurement director David Safavian (convicted of obstruction and making false statements on June 20), and Reed--whose careers have been adversely affected, if not ruined altogether, because of their involvement with Abramoff's schemes. Will that be the end of this sorry episode?
The Evil Bush Strikes Again
Turns out the French have another reason to hate President Bush: He cost them the World Cup. How's that? Simple "trickle-down politics." Allow Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison, writing on July 13, to explain:
Now we know why France's team captain lost his cool in the World Cup finals and France lost the trophy to Italy.
Terrorism.
Zinedine Zidane, who is of French and Algerian ancestry, head-butted an Italian player who insulted him. Although Zidane . . . would not say what words provoked him, a lip reader hired by the Times of London claims Marco Materazzi called Zidane "the son of a terrorist whore."
That's pure trickle-down politics. From the White House to the soccer pitch, "terrorist" has "cooties" and "your mother wears combat boots" flat beat as the top playground potty-mouth slur for the 21st century.
Who's surprised? The Bush administration has been scattering the word like ticker tape on a Manhattan parade. Old McDonald left the farm for the NSA, and now it's here a terrorist, there a terrorist, everywhere a terrorist.
THE SCRAPBOOK assures readers this is not a parody. But it does suggest a new slogan for the antiwar left: "Bush lied! Zidane cried!"
Author! Author!
We take pleasure in noting that our contributing editor Joseph Epstein, following on the success of such recent surgical strikes as Snobbery: The American Version (2002) and Envy (2003), has now turned his attention to the vexed and ambiguous subject of Friendship: An Exposé (Houghton Mifflin, 288 pp., $24). Readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD scarcely need to be informed about Mr. Epstein's way with words, or the scalpel with which he dissects our wayward culture; but in the spirit of his latest title, we are pleased to issue this friendly reminder to book buyers.