Germany Not Happy With Secretary of Defense

And now the most compelling two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

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Secretary Speaks Again...
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appears to have done it again. After infuriating some in Europe with his comment that Germany and France represented the "old Europe," he has now spoken of Germany in the same breath as two of the world's best-known dictatorships. At a House hearing yesterday, Rumsfeld was discussing which countries would support a war on Iraq. He said, "I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are ones that have indicated they won't help in any respect." Conservative opposition party members seized on the comments to attack the government of Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder. Said one opposition politician, "Unfortunately, that is how we are behaving." Said another, "Alarm bells should ring when Germany is placed on the same level as countries like Cuba and Libya." The German Network DW called Rumsfeld's comment, "Another blast of harsh anti-German rhetoric." And a member of the Green Party, which is part of Shroeder's coalition, said the comments were "out of line." The Schroeder government had no imediate comment.

One More Shot
Sen. Hillary Clinton is claiming that the Bush administration was warned by the outgoing Clinton administration during the transition after the 2000 election that it should "spend more time on terrorism and bin Laden than anything else." But, said Sen. Clinton, "That was not their priority" until Sept. 11. The comments came in an interview with Long Island radio station WLIE, and were taped by Newsmax.com. In the interview, Clinton also said the Bush administration has "mishandled" the North Korea nuclear confrontation.

Wants an Apology Too
Republican Congressman Howard Coble of North Carolina is in political trouble with two ethnic groups and Arab-American groups for saying in a radio interview that Franklin Roosevelt was right to put Japanese-Americans in internment camps. "We were at war," the congressman said, in a radio interview. "They were an endangered species. For many of [them], it wasn't safe to be on the street." He said most Japanese-Americans were no threat, but added, "Some probably were intent on doing harm to us, just as some of these Arab-Americans are intent on doing harm to us." "False and hurtful," said James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute, who demanded an apology. A similar demand came form the Japanese-American Citizens League.