The actor and director Robert Redford makes some fascinating comments on the miserable state of US politics in today’s issue of one of Germany’s leading newspapers, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a centrist publication. The occasion for the interview with him is his new movie Lions for Lambs, which opens this week throughout Germany, where there is great interest in US politics and foreign affairs.
The prestigious newspaper signals the importance it attaches to the interview by highlighting it in a big green banner on the front page referring readers to the features section. The headline quotes Redford asking, “How could America sink so low?” The interview in the print edition of the newspaper is entitled “The Politicians Today Are an Insult to Our Intelligence.” The editor of the paper’s website preferred a different heading from the same interview, “The Government Manipulates Us with Fear.”
Serious media in Germany have been trying to paint a diversified picture of the United States, Americans and their politics amid concern that people are going to wake up some morning and find that President Bush has unleashed the Third World War. The US has many friends in Germany from Cold War days, but the fears there are real.
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