Posted on 03/08/2004 8:07:01 PM PST by Jabba the Nutt
SPIEGEL ONLINE With Large Pro-Bush User Base
The votes are in. It's official: two thirds of SPIEGEL ONLINE visitors rate President George W. Bush's job performance as "very good" (59 per cent) or "good" (8 per cent).
An anonymus SPIEGEL ONLINE source described the results as a "complete surprise to us, comparable only to the demise of comrade Erich Honecker". At this very moment, the left-wing SPIEGEL ONLINE editorial team has convened for a strategy session with their media consultants to determine their future course.
"In terms of ideology, everything is now up for grabs," said the source. "We might even endorse Bush's re-election. Kerry's is a Knackwurst, anyway."
In a related development, the results of the SPIEGEL ONLINE poll caused Germany's foreign minister Joschka Fischer to send a message to President Bush, asking for a renewal of the German-American friendship: "My name is Joschka Fischer. I am the foreign minister of Germany and I want to negotiate."
In the meantime, SPIEGEL ONLINE has issued a public statement asking "all internet users with Pro-Bush sentiment to participate in our poll. We advise you to check the web site of David Kaspar for further instructions."
(Translation check by Raymond Drake)
Here's reaction from Bill Dawson, an American living outside of Vienna and he posts at Bill Spricht.
Ach, die arme Leute bei Spiegel!
[posted by bill | 9:39 PM Vienna | perma] Poor, poor Spiegel (German mass-market, extreme America-hating glossy). They found themselves in the embarrassing position today of explaining to their website visitors why it was that 60% of the votes cast over the weekend at their online poll gave President Bush the highest possible rating of "1". And because they were embarrassed, humiliated and probably downright pissed-off (die Arme! :-( ), they had to react with vehemence. Not just a "ha, ha, okay you guys got us!", but a THIRTY PARAGRAPH ARTICLE, well-researched indeed, complete with definitions of such terms as "FREEP" and lots and lots of references to that crazy, Clinton-hating American right-wing. FreeRepublic.com, the website of "the ultraconservative activist Jim Robinson", earns most of their venom, with their compatriot David coming in a very close second.
The detail in this article is impressive indeed! They very obviously researched FreeRepublic and read many of the entries at David's site. They looked into FreeRepublic's history and learned, for example, that big media outlets have threatened FreeRepublic with legal action because of the use of copyrighted material.
I must say, all-in-all this is by far the best-researched Spiegel article I have seen in a long time! If they keep this up, I may have to re-think my opinion of their pathetic, shoddy, yellow journalism.
[UPDATE: For all of you unfamiliar with Der Spiegel's fabulously objective journalistic style, I refer you to a posting of mine from September 2003. Then I even forgot myself for a moment once and praised a Spiegel article.]
You need tons click "co-ordinating" (Free Republic - The conservative click Guerilla)
Aye, now that was a great FReep wasn't it.
That was the whole point, Fritz. God, you guys are dense...
Ever think...maybe you're wrong? Try it.
LOL!
The proper response is "Secretary of State Powell sends his regards."
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