The Germans are mad at us.

There on the cover of a recent edition of Stern, a major German news magazine, was a depiction of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, dressed in animal skins, wielding a sling and a stone. He was facing off against a giant and somewhat befuddled-looking George W. Bush, clad as a Roman warrior, leading his troops into battle.

Aside from the very disturbing image of Shroeder wearing animal skins, does anyone believe that Germany is a 90 pound weakling battling the US behemoth?

Part of this has to do with Germany's well-grounded fear of war. Much of the country was leveled by the Allies during World War II, while millions of Germans were driven from their homes in what is now Poland, the Czech Republic, and other places in Eastern and Central Europe.

Note that it never says that Germany started two wars last century.

Speaking at a dinner at the German Embassy Tuesday evening, Merkel noted that tensions have been building for a while, a view reflected in much of the German media coverage. She pointed in particular to Bush's refusal shortly after taking office to sign an international treaty limiting greenhouse gases, and his decision to slap new tariffs on imported steel, both of which were roundly criticized in the German media.

Oh, I get it now. It's about money and the flawed Kyoto treaty. and then this;

Hans-Peter Riese, Washington bureau chief for the German Broadcasting Systems, said those who run the media these days came of age in the 1960s, a time of deep anti-Americanism, driven in large part by Vietnam. "My colleagues and I, we were all socialized in the late 1960s with the anti-Vietnam War movement and the uprising of students in Germany and the anti-American approach; it has been arrested for a long time [but] it's coming back," Riese said.

Accent mine. At least they have the huevos to admit they're biased.