Posted on 05/08/2006 5:53:51 PM PDT by NCjim
US President George W. Bush isn't known for his willingness for giving interviews, but he recently sat down with German TV presenter Sabine Christiansen for 30 minutes. He answered her questions readily -- but also showed that he's become little more than a spectator of his own political decline.
A man and a woman sit in front of an unlit fireplace in the White House. The woman is Germany's most well known TV presenter. The man is the most powerful man in the world -- or at least that's how he's introduced before the interview begins. And yet what we're shown on German ARD public television Sunday night is really a trans-Atlantic misunderstanding. Sabine Christiansen, who asks George W. Bush about one pressing global issue after another -- and who is relatively insistent when it comes to human rights issues -- isn't really talking to the most powerful man in the world at all. In the spring of 2006, one-and-a-half years after Bush's triumphant re-election, she may in fact be speaking to the most powerless US president of all time.
In the past 60 years, only one American president had worse poll ratings 18 months after his election: Richard Nixon at the end of his stint in office. Bush could safely ignore those polls if everything else were okay -- but at the moment nothing is. For some time now, the president has become an observer of his own political decline. But the world of television often has little to do with reality -
Who knows which "strong woman" -- Condoleeza Rice or Hillary Clinton -- will replace him to visit with Merkel the next time a US president comes to Germany. Maybe the fireplace will be lit then. Today it stayed cold: trans-Atlantic television ashes in the White House.
(Excerpt) Read more at service.spiegel.de ...
Actually, both Carter (28%) and Bush I (29%) managed lower ratings than Bush II's current low mark (31%). Just for the record....
"And then of course there's Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo..."
The biggest non-issues. Ever.
It really is astounding to me how universally it is not accepted as in this piece that Saddam Hussein was not so bad.
We have zero evidence of the kind of blatant genocidal activity that Saddam committed versus Iran. Iran has expressed genocidal intentions (wiping Israel off the map). Both warrant serious military responses by a united international community. Instead we are treated to cheap partisan Euro theater.
America did not solve Europe's ethnic hatreds with WWII. We have transposed their disgusting morality into an international framework can look with bemusement at any genocidal activity-- Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, Rwanda, Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia-- the list never ends. That same bemused profiteering mindset barks like a too small dog at any assertion of moral authority by the one nation on the earth that acts on the truth.
I hope Merkel can bring this german society back from its cultural disaster.
It's so nice to experience the genuine care and concern Claus has for the well-being of the USA and her President.
How do you say shmuck in German?
Schmuk is a German word, I think...or maybe it's yiddish?
It' s May. It's Washington. What awful writing. Totally undermines it's own credibility. Talk about ashes; the only thing that compares is the lack of substance is this article. (But the writer got in that whole fireplace-ashes bit that should have been at least saved for winter.)
Have any Yiddish words come into English?
A. American-English is peppered with Yiddish words: schmuk, schlemiel, cacamaimey and gelt are all familiar terms these days. However, British-English assimilated Yiddish words, initially through various slangs, particularly in London, from the large-scale Eastern-European Jewish immigration into Whitechapel, east London, at the turn of the 20th century.
Q. Such as?
A. Nosh, kosher, chutzpah, schmooze, schlep and schnozz all spring swiftly to mind, though there are plenty more.
http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/shtetl.html
Looks like german journalists are as bright as journalists all over the world. Poor dear thinks it's cold in the US because the weather is miserable where he lives.
Ironically, "Schmuck" means "jewelry" auf deutsch.
Anyway, I'd like to ask this interviewer her understanding of the terms "B-17" and "B-24".
Cruel? Sorry, but Germany started the s--- in 1914 and 1939. Aber nicht uns in Amerika.
German schadenfreude is rearing its ugly head, yet once again.
scha·den·freu·de ( P ) Pronunciation Key (shädn-froid)
n.
Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
I left them my feedback on this one.
There was of course the usual Euroweenie dictator coddling in this one. Then of course there is the issue that "nothing is right" for Bush when he's sitting on an economy that is growing at over 3 times the rate of the German economy and has been doing so for five years now.
Even when Katrina hit the US in the fourth quarter of last year, our economy still grew faster than theirs.
Perhaps the writers of Dear Beagle could use a good dose of reality.
Yes, Bush has cooked his own political capital, but it's not over the issues that they mention in this article. How can you write something like this and not mention the borders or the Ports Deal?
Really. Where's the nod to the Prez's eco-friendly decision not to have an ostentatious and pointless fire just so TV can have a pretty picture? Really, Claus, I thought all Germans were so much more Green and evolved than that. Kyoto Treaty and all that sort of thing.
Well, I guess you have to take your cheap shots as you can find them.
Speaking of which, how's the economy over there, Claus?
BERLIN, Jan. 3, 2006. (AP) Germany's jobless rate rose to 11.1 percent.
Ouch! Things are a little slow, eh?
Here's my favorite Yiddish word..... How about 'putzhead' ala Chuck Schumer? When Al D'Amato referrer to Schumer (in PRIVATE, I believe) by that term that was said to derive from a crude Yiddish expression, the MSM went absolutely nuts against D'Amato and actively swung the election to Schumer.
Anyway, Schumer IS a putzhead..... or I could say much worse. Note that the MSM didn't care in the least when the 1992 'Rat candidate called D'Amato a 'fascist'.......
http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/1998/fax19981030.asp
Double standards, anyone??
Utterances from the Eurotrash "journalists" of our failed "ally"...you know the one with a minus birth rate ,an aging defeated population, minus zero employment rate, an Islamic immigrant population who despises their host and an ally caught with their greasy hands in the till of the UN oil for food scandal as well as the supply of nuclear armament products to nation-states of the middle East who are funding worldwide terrorism.
In short : our friends.
"Speaking of which, how's the economy over there, Claus?
BERLIN, Jan. 3, 2006. (AP) Germany's jobless rate rose to 11.1 percent.
Ouch! Things are a little slow, eh?"
LOL, yeah. The Germans I've known here in the US came here because they couldn't get a job in Germany. They were reduced to doing "contract work" here in the US and in other parts of Europe. These were highly, highly educated, skilled people.
The housing costs in Germany are also outrageous. I think now, most people do not own their own home. The exact opposite is true in the US.
It's very sad to see what's happened to Europe.
The Germans and French take special delight in Bush's low poll numbers and frequent beatings in the American press.
The Germans and the French are still bitter at losing their Saddam gravy train. They are projecting their loss onto W. He's far too polite to gloat. Guess it makes 'em feel better...
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