ANAYSIS
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Right Wing Stokes Hatred of 'Euroweenies'
By Mary Papenfuss
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Posted Aug 13, 09 5:15 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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Europeans may have longer lives and longer vacations, but red-blooded Americans don't want their socialist ways on this side of the ocean, right wing media mouths are eager to remind everyone, MIchael Freedman writes in Newsweek. Underlying much of the opposition to health care reform is the fear that it's part of an anti-American conspiracy to transform the US into a "European social welfare state," according to Rush Limbaugh.
A decades-long suspicion of Europeans erupted into full-blown loathing among some Americans over differences about the Iraq war. Now, so many things President Obama does—like pushing health care reform and putting Dijon mustard on his hamburger recently—makes him look like a Euroweenie, according to people like Laura Ingraham. But what can it hurt to cherry-pick the best of Europe, asks Freedman, rather than automatically dismiss everything European over some "ideological je ne sais quoi."