Gerhard and the world of tomorrow

Writing in Der Spiegel, Claus Christian Malzahn askes: Could George W. Bush Be Right?

This, in fact, is likely the largest point of disagreement between Europe and the United States -- and one that a President John Kerry likely would not have made smaller: Europeans today -- just like the Europeans of 1987 -- cannot imagine that the world might change. Maybe we don't want the world to change, because change can, of course, be dangerous. But in a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. In Mainz today, the stagnant Europeans came face to face with the dynamic Americans. We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow.

This by no means represents the general view of the German press. Der Speiegel's press round-up reveals a press gritting their teeth trying to be nice for a few days, and only capable of putting this sort of exchange not in geo-politial terms, but in me-me-me!-generation personalization of the US-German relationship.

...as if the US and Germany were equally involved in global matters...