Incongruity Alert

NYT: Europe’s Socialists Suffering Even in Downturn

However there’s always that strange sound of zombies out in those woods on the other side of the railroad tracks when the American provisional wing of the European socialist rose-bearers rings in on an issue like this. The online article’s properties list a different title altogether: “Even in Capitalists’ Bad Times, Europe’s Socialists Suffer - NYTimes.com”

As appealing as the idea is, European Socialists are not disappearing. They are just experiencing less control over their political challengers’ avenues to state their positions.

German voters clobbered the Social Democratic Party on Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II.
Voters also punished left-leaning candidates in the summer’s European Parliament elections and trounced French Socialists in 2007. Where the left holds power, as in Spain and Britain, it is under attack. Where it is out, as in France, Italy and now Germany, it is divided and listless.

It being the New York Times, random, unrelated, and spurious political hobgoblins have to be introduced or course:

Some American conservatives demonize President Obama’s fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul as a dangerous turn toward European-style Socialism — but it is Europe’s right, not left, that is setting its political agenda.

What Mr. Obama, idolized by many no longer questioning reality, has to do with this story, one can only speculate. It does, however, reveal the author’s hand – to the blind.

And as if it one little buzz-phrase caught in their jaws was the essence of capitalism, the unfamiliarity that the stupid hold for the object of their hatred...

Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance,” greed and the weakness of regulatory systems

You might as well throw in the Mummenschantz Players while you’re at it, if you’re trying to maintain some congruity: