The Idiocy of it All

As a perceptive Slate article points out, the new German coalition government is without one of Germany's most sincerely pro-American politicians, Joschka Fischer. Fischer - it should be remembered - stood to the right of Gerhard Schröder on the Iraq question - though a skeptic on the WMD question, he had no desire for a trans-Atlantic rift and none of Schröder's callow electoral motives. At considerable risk, Fischer supported the Kosovo war in 1999.

Naturally, the Bush White House has taken no notice of him.

When President Bush came to Mainz last February to shake hands with Schröder for the cameras and pronounce a new day in German-American relations, he was introduced to a tart-looking but not-quite-familiar man.

"Hello, what's your name?" Bush said to Joschka Fischer.

"My name is Mr. Fischer," deadpanned Germany's then-foreign minister. "What's your name?"

Let no one say Germans are bereft of a sense of humor. And let no one say this White House knows how to treat its friends.