Posted on 09/19/2002 5:00:43 AM PDT by NativeNewYorker
Berlin (dpa) - A minister in German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's cabinet compared U.S. President George W. Bush's methods to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, a newspaper report said Thursday.
Speaking to trade unionists in talks mistakenly believed off the record, Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin said Bush's desire to wage war on Iraq was not due to oil.
``The Americans have enough oil,'' said Daeubler-Gmelin, as quoted by the Schwaebische Tageblatt paper adding: ``Bush wants to distract attention from his domestic problems. This is a popular method. Hitler also used it.''
Only after some of the unionists questioned this assertion did Daeubler-Gmelin add: ``I did not equate Bush with Hitler.''
But the minister then continued her criticism of Bush and the United States. ``The (U.S.) has a lousy legal system,'' said Daeubler-Gmelin as quoted by the paper.
She said if current American laws aimed at insider trading had been in force in 1980s when the president worked in the oil sector: ``Bush would be sitting in prison today.''
The report said Daeubler-Gmelin had not known a works council journalist from the newspaper was at the meeting held in the western city of Tuebingen and that she later phoned the paper to stress she had not compared Bush to Hitler.
In a statement, the German Justice Ministry tried to pour cold water on the entire story by describing it as ``absurd'' and the product of small-town ``local reporter.
But there was no explicit denial of the Hitler comment in the one page statement.
Daeubler-Gmelin is known for her sharp tongue. A member of Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) in parliament told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that her nickname is a word-play on her double-barrelled name: ``Daeubler-Gemein'' (Daeubler-Nasty).
Opposition conservatives demanded that Schroeder sack the minister for the comments.
``Those who compare Bush with Hitler and then say he's a criminal do great damage to Gemany,'' said Micael Glos, parliamentary leader of the opposition Christian Social Union (CSU).
Glos said Daeubler-Gmelin's comments were the new high point of Schroeder's anti-American campaign aimed at this Sunday's German general election.
Schroeder has made opposition to the United States over an Iraq war a central plank of his reelection bid.
The Social Democratic (SPD) chancellor has vowed not to send German troops to fight in any war against Iraq and refuses to say if he would allow the U.S. to use its German bases and overfly rights for any such conflict.
Schroeder, who had been trailing, now has a narrow lead over his conservative challenger, Edmund Stoiber, according to four out of Germany's top five opinion polls.
Explaining the chancellor's surging support, the news weekly Der Spiegel said: ``Schroeder's clear position, skilfully mixed with anti-American sentiments, is drawing leftists, nationalist rightists and especially people in (former communist East Germany).''
high point? This guy's abnoxious in this typical German liberal self-gratification and custodial enforcements.
I particularly love this paragraph from Safire's column:
Defense officials tell me in classic Pentagonese that we are already "reconfiguring our footprint" — that is, reviewing deployment of our troops globally to make us capable of applying mobile force anywhere rather than to sit in place to meet any specific threat. That's part of the "lily pad concept," on the analogy of frogs hopping around a number of forward bases, "and no slur intended to the French."
:-)
Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin announced a draft of a statute on shoplifting.
And web speech:
And the death penalty for terrorists:
My grandfather used to say, "The Hun is either at your feet or at your throat". They're trying to get at the President's throat while on their knees, it seems.
Regards, Ivan
The phrase "takes one to know one" leaps to mind.
The world has come unglued, I tell ya.
Soon as Bush's elite troops? takeover Poland? ban guns and [political speech? take over the press? burn all the books? and gas 6 million untermenschen, I guess they'll have a point.
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