I know I’ve sworn to avoid political commentary, and here for the second time in as many weeks I find myself going off on a politically-charged (and shockingly incorrect) tangent. The inspiration for it, though, was something that really frosted my Eier and so I feel justified.

While paging through my unfavorite paper, The Washington Post, I happened upon the movie reviews.

For the edification of those who do not read The Washington Post and/or do not know me personally, I find it an annoying and self-righteous paper. Most of its columnists and reporters could work some holier-than-thou-and-thy-entire-species bit of huggybear philosophy into a traffic report. Run a red light, and you get written up as a racist oppressor of signal rights.

So I was appalled, in Stephen Hunter’s review of The Pianist (which actually does promise to be a pretty good movie), to find this little dollop of whipped cream:

“He is a man of affairs, good in restaurants, witty and lively in conversation, so refined you would think he’d be easy pickings for thugs with guns and clubs who envision a world scrubbed clean of his annoying superiority so that they can eat sauerkraut and belch without having to feel bad about themselves.”

Would the same publication tolerate the phrase “so that they can eat Matzoh balls and fart”? I doubt it, or at least I really hope they wouldn’t.

In 2003, it’s still okay — and condoned — to hate Germans. We can’t hate anyone else, even our other WWII opponents. Somehow, even the Empire of Japan has been redecorated as victim instead of enemy. We’re still not supposed to trust Berlin, though. Muenchen is full of poison beer and Dresden has armed thugs masquerading as six-inch porcelain shepherdesses.

I am not condoning “The Final Solution.” I am simply pointing out that other nations committed atrocities as well. The United States was not blameless itself. War is hell, and rarely do nice things happen in its course.

One thing that we all should have learned from the hideous lessons of World War II is that it’s not really okay to hate people simply because of their ethnic makeup. Mr. Hunter, unfortunately, flouts that very lesson while ostensibly upholding it.

I am going to eat kraut and wurstl and Himbeertorte tonight, and I promise not to belch or kill pianists.