Der Spiegel has started running more English-language articles, including one that summarizes various German newspaper editorial opinions on a particular subject each day.
A lot of Americans probably assume that since the Republicans see the current "red-green" (Social Democrats and Greens) coalition as hostile to Bush, that German conservatives must see him a lot more favorably. But that would be a real misunderstanding of the situation, as illustrated by this set of Spiegel summaries: President George W. Bush - Giant or Devil? 02/04/05.
The tabloid Bild-Zeitung, whose political perspective tends to hover in the Oxycontin zone, is pleased at least with Condi Rice.
But Germany's best-known conservative paper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (aka FAZ) is not very impressed with the American president and his Social Security phase-out proposal, which it likens to his foreign policy:
The FAZ isn't buying it. The plan, says the paper, proves one thing: "(Bush) is not a conservative in the traditional sense." In fact, says the paper, he is not a conservative at all. "He is, to be honest, a radical -- an infuriating radical in his goals and far from squeamish in his methods." During his first administration, Bush pushed his will on the world and in his foreign policy. "Now, in his second administration, Bush is turning his "revolutionary" ambition toward America's domestic life and toward its safety net: He wants to reform the Social Security system through partial privatization." In this battle, however, the paper warns, he likely won't get the same sort of bi-partisan support that helped him push through the Iraq war in 2003.
And this is what a respectable, Establishment conservative newspaper is saying about it!
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