THE GOLDEN GIRLS GO TO FIST CITY

Europe's foolish tiffs (Uwe Siemon-Netto, 7/11/2003, UPI)

Let's start with the leader of this writer's homeland, Germany. Having just excelled in the Iraq crisis as postwar Germany's premier diplomatic underperformer, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has now slipped into the role of what we call "beleidigte Leberwurst," or miffed liver sausage.

Because a demented undersecretary in Italy's ministry of tourism badmouthed Germans roasting their bellies on beaches along the Adriatic coast, Chancellor Schroeder, ever the populist, cancelled his holiday in that man's land, where leading German leftists have been summering ever since the late 1960s - chiefly in enchanting Tuscany.

Instead, Herr Schroeder will relax among his garden dwarves, if indeed he has some of those on the plot of land surrounding his Hanover home. Anyway, that's where he'll be, and other prominent Social Democrats have threatened to follow his example.

In other words, they vowed: Let's engage in virtual combat. Let's punish Italian pizza bakers, hoteliers and waiters vicariously for the nasty stuff tourism official Stefano Stefani has said about his German ex-wife's fellow countrymen.

He labeled them beer-swilling nationalistic boors. Acually, this characterization does in fact apply to some of the hordes manning the beeches of Rimini, where you won't exactly find Germany's elite in July and August. Still it doesn't make much sense to insult a nation providing Italy with 40 percent of its tourism revenues.

Of course, the most suave member of Schroeder's cabinet, foreign minister Joschka Fischer, will not stay home in order to avenge the Fatherland; like eight million other Germans he will travel to Italy to rest up.

What we don't know, though, is this: Had he originally planned to vacation in Sweden? If so, a ranking Stockholm politician' thoughts for the summer might have put him off. She labeled him a terrorist. That description was blatantly unfair. We all know that back in the revolutionary late 1960s Fischer was a nasty thug battling cops -- but a terrorist? No, surely not - not a terrorist!

The American Left thinks we should worry what these nitwits think of us? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 12, 2003 12:35 PM