(SOMEWHAT) MINOR QUIBBLE: While looking over Jonah Golberg's September comments on Herta Däubler-Gmelin's criticisms of Bush (for Friday's blog), I noticed one point that I will now turn, gleefully, into a plea for more American attention to education in foreign languages. The background for my comment is the continuing decline in American job listings for university positions in language and literature (a phenomenon noticed by the New York Times on Saturday).

Here's the relevant quote from Goldberg's piece:

We also learned this week that Schröder's justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin (try not spit when you say it), had said all sorts of nasty things about America and George Bush — who, she thinks, should be in jail. According to Daeubler-Gmelin, Bush is using the war to distract from his domestic problems. "That's a popular method," she noted. "Even Hitler did that."

Catch that "even" in "even Hitler did that"? What the hell does that mean? Is she suggesting Hitler was somehow more disciplined than Bush when it comes to indulging the base instincts of the populace? Imagine saying that attacking Jews is a popular tactic — "even Hitler did it."

Ignore Goldberg's snide comment on the supposed production of saliva that accompanies attempts to speak German. And ignore the part about "jail" (which had to do with changes in insider-trading laws). Sounds like Goldberg's got a point, no? What, indeed, does it mean to say that "even Hitler did that"? Is it possible that Herta Däubler-Gmelin is saying something even worse than we thought, namely, that Bush is worse than Hitler with respect to strategic use of demagoguery?

Actually, no. Here is the quote from the original newspaper article in the Schwaebisches Tagblatt:

“Bush will von seinen innenpolitischen Schwierigkeiten ablenken. Das ist eine beliebte Methode. Das hat auch Hitler schon gemacht.”[Emphasis added.]

My rough translation: "Bush wants to divert attention from domestic difficulties. That's a much-loved method. Even Hitler did that."

The problem with Goldberg's interpretation of the word "even" is that it ignores a translation difficulty with respect to a basic word combination in German. The phrase "auch schon" is rendered as "even" in English, but the two words that make up the phrase, rendered separately, are "also" and "already." The phrase "auch schon" in German weighs heavily in the temporal direction. You could also translate the phrase as meaning, "Hitler did that, too," or "Hitler did that also, already." In his search for reasons to nail Germans for being morally bankrupt, Goldberg is reading an extra meaning into a translation that doesn't quite support the interpretation.

To be fair, it's not really Goldberg's fault. He probably never took German in school, or if he did, he's forgotten it already. Even I've forgotten much of my French -- or, I've forgotten much of my French also, already.