It appears that Weaselfuhrer Gerhard Schroeder is discovering that insulting Americans carries a cost. It not only alienates Americans, but it embarasses Germans. And rightly so. While some whiners in America complained that the Bushies were "childish" to give the Germans the cold shoulder, it's increasingly clear that most German voters rightly identified who the real children were: Schroeder and his America-bashing SPD party.

A few weeks ago Schroeder's SPD party took a major election drubbing. Well, they just another drubbing in recent municipal elections. A couple of things are increasingly apparent from this:

1) When Rumsfeld refused to shake the German defense minister's hand in public, most of the German public got the message quick. Ditto when they heard rumors that we might pull most of our troops out of Germany.
2) Even if the general German public may not agree with the U.S. position, acting like spoiled children (which is exactly how Schroeder and his SPD cronies have been acting) is an embarassment to Germans everywhere. It's just plain bad manners to a country that's been your best friend for half a century.
3) While most Germans may oppose our war plans, they understand that reasonable people may disagree.

Germany's Christian Democrats are steadily gaining ground on the SPD. If Schroeder wants his party to survive, he might consider starting to act less like a petulant child and more like a real statesman.