Austrian historians ricicule Schwarzenegger's polemic

[emad]

Arnie's total recall flawed
From Michael Leidig in Vienna
The Times

Snip:
ARNOLD Schwarzenegger has been ridiculed by Austrian historians for telling the Republican national convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and left a “socialist” country when he emigrated to America in 1968. Recalling that the Soviets occupied parts of Austria after the Second World War, Mr Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, told the convention on Tuesday: “I saw tanks in the streets. I saw Communism with my own eyes.”

However, Stefan Karner, an historian, said that Schwarzenegger, who was born on July 30, 1947, would not have seen Russian tanks in his home town. “The fact is that as a child in Styria, he could not have seen Soviet tanks,” Herr Karner said. By the time Schwarzenegger was born, the province was occupied by the British, he added.

Martin Polaschek, a legal historian at the Karl Franzen University, said that he could not understand Mr Schwarzenegger’s claim that Austria “became socialist after the Soviets left”. “Austria was ruled by a coalition government,” he said. “He is getting a free country mixed up with a socialist one.” Herr Polaschek accused the Governor of “trying to use the old Communist threat for Bush’s election campaign”.

Norbert Darabos, of the Social Democrats, said: “It’s strange that Arnold Schwarzenegger feels he needs to make defamatory statements about Austria to cheerlead for George W. Bush. Schwarzenegger enjoys all the pomp and attention he gets in Austria. He ought to judge his former home more fairly and decently in the United States.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1245815,00.html

Anybody betting on stem-cell research being able to one day cure Republican revisionism?????

[sandraj]

1. Ahnuld doesn't seem to be up

on Austrian OR American history.

But it's always the same issue with these people: "who needs facts?"

[chelsea0011]

2. Repukes lie. It's their way.

[Frodo]

8. Actually, it looks more like Stefan Karner wasn't up on Ahnold's speech

I remember him specifically saying he remembered driving in to the Soviet sector. I'm pretty confident there would have been Soviet tanks in the Soviet sector. Probably quite a few of them.

Saying there wouldn't have been tanks on his street is sillier than debunking swiftvets who said they "served" with Kerry by saying they lied because none of them were actually on his boat. Show them to be liars some other way. Nobody buys that only five men on that boat served with him and the boat cruising next to his did not.

As for "Socialism". That's less a "lie" than the standard Republican/Democrat disagreement on government. Austria may have been governed by a "conservative coalition" by European standards, but Humphrey would have sounded a LOT more like that coalition than Nixon did. Those liberal positions are CALLED "Socialism" by Republicans. But so are Kerry's positions.

So it more a lie/mistake by the whole party about what constitutes socialism than a lie by Ahnold about what he remembers.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Bet Austria's sorry for putting Arnold's mug on their postage stamps

now that he's revealed how ignorant he is of the national history.

[rfkrocks]

4. Kick

made-up history-classic repuke speech:kick:

[slor]

5. What the gropenator meant to say was...

"I saw the British tanks in the street. I saw the defeat and end of Nazi rule with my own eyes. And it frightened me."

[emad]

7. Maybe: "I saw the US and UK tanks in the streets of Baghdad

and Basra and Najaf and Fallujah and Mosul, and it frightened me....enough to running as Repuke Gov of California in order to save my own ass"...

[not systems]

6. It is hard to be sympathetic to someone bemoaning the destruction of...

the Third Reich.

Please the poor Austrians and the mean old Soviets.

Give me a break.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

9. How many Americans even KNEW the Soviets occupied Austria...

....till Arnolds speech?

I was sort of wondering about that myself, as I thought he was from the more Alpine part of the country while the soviets occupied the area around Vienna.

[GingerSnaps]

10. Arnold might be lying about his age

I wouldn't put anything past a republican they will lie and lie until it becomes the truth in their minds.

Arnold might be allot older then he is saying that the is.

[emad]

11. Re: Lies: WHAT I want to know is, bodybuilders who get out

of shape still tend to retain the musculature but it goes very floppy and doesn't shrink when the lose weight because it isn't fat.

SO how come Arnie's physique has changed so radically since he stopped bodybuilding? Strange to think that a plastic surgeon must have hacked off all those biceps and triceps to shrink him down a bit...

[emad]

12. oops dupe

erase erase erase

[MaineDem]

13. Arnold = True Lies (nt)

:D