If their whole strategy for this election is Godwin, I think we’ve won.

Ask Jerry “Hitler Ads” Kilgore down here how well that worked for him when he ran for governor in VA.

I see no apology from Obama, just an acknowledgment of past mistakes and imperfection. Normally, I’d be surprised that a columnist for a major newspaper couldn’t make that simple distinction, but this is the Daily Mail we’re talking about. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail ]

Speaking of apologies, I wonder if Surber has made apologies for (or even acknowledged) his paper’s printing headlines like “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” in 1934, or for the paper’s owner being all palsy-walsy with Mussolini and Hitler before it became oh-so-unfashionable in 1939. You’d think someone with such a long and outraged memory of German calumny would refuse to work for a paper like that, even in 2008.

It would have been so much simpler for Surber if Mosley had become PM under the re-instated Edward VIII—then he could have his nationalism and fascism all in one neat package!

We would all do well to remember that Don Surber is kind of just a really bad joke.  Like Larry the Cable Guy, but with even fewer redeeming qualities.

Whoops! Wrong Daily Mail. My apologies to the Charleston Daily Mail, which I’m sure never supported fascism.

So to be fair, Surber is only guilty of not being able to distinguish between an apology and an acknowledgment.

I apologize to the world for the presence of dumb fucking assholes like Surber in my country.

Wow.

What utter bullshit - particularly the following lines by Mr. Surber: “[Obama’s] praise of German’s love of freedom was a joke. Germans no more love freedom than they love Jews.”

My God, what a marvelously idiotic statement.

Is Mr. Surber aware that WWII ended 63 years ago in Europe? And that the vast majority of Germans living today had nothing to do with it?

Is Mr. Surber aware that WWII ended 63 years ago in Europe? And that the vast majority of Germans living today had nothing to do with it?

...and that in spite of not having had anything to do with it, they still feel bad about it anyway?

I lived in Germany for a year and a half, and let me tell you, the collective national guilt is ASTOUNDING.

Surber needs to STFU.  It’s considered a bad idea to show the entire world that you’re a blithering idiot.

I lived in Germany for a year and a half, and let me tell you, the collective national guilt is ASTOUNDING.

When the dust settles on the Bush Administration, we are so going to kick Germany’s ass in the collective national guilt competition. Or at least, collective national embarrassment.

Maggie:

I lived in Germany for a year and a half, and let me tell you, the collective national guilt is ASTOUNDING.

Yeah. My step-father is from Germany. From Munich, no less, the original home of the Nazi Party. Years ago, when I and a friend were visiting my aunt there, the discomfort in the room was palpable and intense when I said that we’d be visiting Dachau that day.

Or at least, collective national embarrassment.

Actually, I think the response is mostly going to be collective national denial. And from some idiots, pride. I’m hoping for better than that, though.

>>>Surber needs to STFU.  It’s considered a bad idea to show the entire world that you’re a blithering idiot.

Indeed.

But hey, if he’s determined to act like an imbecile, who are we to stop him?

Surber’s “logic” feels suspiciously like that of an eight year-old boy throwing a tantrum.  However, it boggles the mind that someone like him can get a column at a decent-sized newspaper.

I don’t care what Surber’s politics are, but he doesn’t talk, he jibbers.

He apologized to a nation that exterminated 6 million Jews — two-thirds of all the Jews in Europe before the start of the war — for America?

you mean “the country that was built on the ruins of the country that exterminated 12 million civilians” right, Surbur?

Because the current nation, while inarguably the recent genetic descendants, some of the soldiers from that war are even still alive, but it isn’t the same country any more than China is the country torn apart by European Colonialism and epidemic levels of opium addiction. Or Norway being the land of vikings and subsistence farming instead of a pacifist socialist democracy with a surprising number of nude beaches for a country that collides with the Arctic Circle. Or Turkey is the land of those villainous prettyboys that obscond with Greek princesses.

What karpad said(LOL!).
I hereby propose an admendment to Godwin’s Law:Any political commentator who attempts to distract from or downplay current human rights violations perpetuated by any country or institution by invoking the Nazis of 1930s/40s has renderered their own argumentation worthless.
Example(witnessed in a Starbucks in Cologne):
German sociology student:“I’ve just read this book by Murat Kurnaz…”
US tourist:“Who?”
G.s.s.:“He’s a German Turk who spent years imprisoned at Guantanamo…”
US.t.:“OH,yeah?!Well,your grandpa was a Nazi!”

And let’s not count the corpses that form the foundation of our own lovely palace, shall we?

CHV: Is Mr. Surber aware that WWII ended 63 years ago in Europe? And that the vast majority of Germans living today had nothing to do with it?

It’s his business not to be aware.

Apparently to right wing sycophants like Serber, if Obama expresses anything short of uninterrupted adulation for the holiest of holies - the mighty, manly and infallible U S of A - he’s “apologizing” and dragging the nation’s manhood into the girl’s dressing room to be fitted for a pink bra.

The US nearly exterminated the original inhabitants of the continent, enslaved thousands of blacks ( many other thousands of whom died during the Middle Passage), denied rights and social equality to women, and started imperialistic wars against countries no threat to us, but Surber doesn’t think we’ve made mistakes and not lived up to our ideals at times?  I guess if we don’t admit our mistakes we can hide them under the rug.  Except the big bulge in the middle of the rug is kind of a giveaway.

Apparently to right wing sycophants like Serber, if Obama expresses anything short of uninterrupted adulation for the holiest of holies

Actually, I think that even if Obama had expressed uninterrupted adulation for the USA and hatred of everyone else, Surber would still find some way to be against Obama. He’d say Obama was trying too hard or something. I think with folks like Surber, it’s really a case of finding whatever reasons you can to support your unchanging beliefs.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Hot damn. As a Canadian, can I say “Thank you, Barack Obama”? It’s really *nice* to see Americans occasionally admitting that hey, maybe they did fuck up a bit now and then. It actually improves their image with the rest of the world. Isn’t that a good thing?

Oh, wait, the only thing that matters is how Americans see themselves. The US is an isolated country that exists in solitude on the planet, except when it wants something other countries have….

(Yikes, a little bitterness showing there, and I don’t really have much cause for it. But I do like Obama’s statement!)

Very true about German collective guilt, too, as I saw when working for a German engineer. He had an article he was passing around talking about how sports has become a safe way for Germans to feel patriotic and good about themselves, because now, even sixty years later, they are SO VERY wary of direct patriotism.