The opening of the Republican National Convention in New York City is getting plenty of coverage today. Dietmar Ostermann in Frankfurter Rundschau notes that the US electorate is more divided than ever, and President Bush needs to win over a small sliver of undecided voters if he is to win on November 2. ARD blogger Rainer Sütfelt is amazed about how many Americans – even New Yorkers! – speak openly about God. He attributes to the fact that Americans haven’t lived through wars on their own land. New Yorkers who lived through the 9/11 attacks might respectfully disagree.
What really caught the news media’s attention, however, was the speech by Rudolph Giuliani where he brought up the terrorist attacks on the Munich Olympics and the subsequent actions of the German government as dangerous examples of appeasing terrorism. This from the Financial Times Deutschland:
Auf dem Wahlparteitag gab es auch Buhrufe für Deutschland. Zu den deutlichen Missfallensäußerungen der knapp 5000 Delegierten und Ersatzdelegierten kam es, als Giuliani die Anschläge auf das israelische Olympiateam 1972 in München schilderte. Drei der damals festgenommenen Terroristen seien binnen weniger Monate von den Deutschen freigelassen worden, so Giuliani.
I have to admit, the historical facts around the hijacking of the Lufthansa jet in Beruit that resulted in the release of the three surviving terrorists are not that clear today. Perhaps one of our German blogger friends can give us a refresher history lesson.
UPDATE TO SUPER MONDAY: Yesterday I said we would report on how Oskar Lafontaine’s speech in Leipzig at the Montagsdemo was received by the crowd of demonstrators. Evidently not everyone shared the views of the egg thrower; many were moved by Oskar’s impassioned rhetoric:
“Spitzenmäßiger Redner”, schwärmt Wilfried Holzmüller, eingetragenes SPD-Mitglied aus Thüringen. “Endlich übernimmt mal einer das Kommando”, sagt ein anderer Zuhörer. Die übrigen Redner seien doch alles nur “Spaßmacher”.
Whether this appearance marks Oskars Comeback remains to be seen.
