As a part of their endless campaign to “otherize” President Obama, Republicans are fond of talking about his radical Marxist Socialist “European” policies. They rarely let the facts get in the way of their propagandizing, European politics have been drifting rightward in the last decade and Center Left governments have been defeated and replaced by conservative governments that are well to the Right of previous ones. Jacques Chirac was smack dab in the middle of the political spectrum but Sarko is flapping mostly his right wing and rather woefully at that.

Neo-Thatcherite economic policies are in place throughout the continent and enforced by the EU and the big kahuna of Europe: German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Austerity is in vogue and it’s led to rioting in Greece and a double dip recession elsewhere.

I seem to recall that Mitt Haircut, Speaker Boner and their Koch owned teabagger fellow travelers are for spending cuts and balanced budgets that will never exist because of their tax cut mania. In short, they’re for painful austerity for everyone but the 1%. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Something else that will not change is the Republicans trash talking Europe for the benefit of their moronic nativist base. Europe is full of furriners and furriners are all Socialists except for when they’re not. Hell, most Americans are convinced that the current Canadian government is left wing instead of having a neo-Reaganite PM in Stephen Harper. One would think the Goopers would celebrate Canada’s misfortune but they’d rather have a straw man to light afire. It’s what they do.

Austerity, however, may be on the decline in Europe since Sarko seems to be on the verge of losing the French Presidency to the mild socialism of Francois Hollande. That will end the Merkozy reign of terror but the Germans still carry the big stick in the EU. Uh oh, I’m soundng like Joe Biden right now…

For more on the economics of European austerity read this piece by Robert Reich.

The next time Mittbot spews idiotic comments about Obama’s “Euro-socialism,” remember who’s the real European. He can stick that in in his Otherizer and blend it…