The Middle-Finger

There's not much to say, the SPD's candidate for Chancellor is asked by the Suddeutsche Zeitung folks (a newspaper) to pose for a magazine article.  He does a series of poses, and one has him with the middle-finger in full extension.

A number of Germans got all upset....even though they've seen this at work and on the street a thousand times.

A number of Germans didn't get upset, and just said it was all part of the political process.

For a guy from Alabama.....generally, this would be enough to screw up your election results, lose ten percent of your audience, and kinda put you in the "John McCain-status" (nutty but acceptable).

But in Germany, it's a different world.  I don't think he lost any votes with the pose, and I doubt if anyone really got all that upset.  There's probably forty guys out there that wish they'd done the same pose.  Chancellor Merkel?  Well.....she'd just grin and say that she'd like to do it, but thinks it's probably unladylike.

Sadly, this is the biggest news of the past week....in the run-up to the German election.  That really says a lot.