A Holocaust Survivor blasts Schroeder and Chirac

And the one doing the blasting was Tom Lantos, a Democratic Congressman.

leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a `political prostitute.'
Germany denounced the remarks by Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as an insult to its people.

Lantos' comments about Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac, both opponents of the Iraq war, came in a speech Tuesday at the dedication of a monument to victims of communism. President Bush spoke at the same event, but did not arrive until after Lantos spoke.

"I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

....Lantos said Chirac "should go down to the Normandy beaches. He should see those endless rows of white marble crosses and stars of David representing young Americans who gave their lives for the freedom of France."

He said under the successors of Schroeder and Chirac, Angela Merkel in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France, relations with the United States "will take a very positive turn"

Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, and sent to a Nazi labor camp when he was 16. He is the only survivor of the Holocaust ever to have served in Congress.

Remember that part of the meme about how Bush has alienated our allies is based on these two guys, Schroeder and Chirac. If Sarkozy and Merkel had been in power in 2002 and 2003 instead of Chirac and Schroeder, would the attitude of France and Germany in the United Nations and in the approach to the war in Iraq have been different? And would that have changed that whole line about Bush alienating our allies? Now that there are two leaders who are more favorably disposed towards the United States, should that be any indication of Bush's success in pulling closer to our allies? Of course not! Their behavior is independent of us. I'll let Lantos's descriptions of Chirac and Scroeder stand.