Arnold S.

[Nilsen]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/03/schwarzenegger.ap/index.html

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Austrian historians are challenging California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and that he left a "Socialist" country when he moved away in 1968.

Recalling that the Soviets once occupied part of Austria in the aftermath of World War II, Schwarzenegger told the convention on Tuesday: "I saw tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes."

Historians, however, are questioning Schwarzenegger's version of postwar history -- if not his enduring popularity among Austrians who admire him for rising from a penniless immigrant to the highest official in America's most populous state.

"It's a fact -- as a child he could not have seen a Soviet tank in Styria," the southeastern province where Schwarzenegger was born and raised, historian Stefan Karner told the Vienna newspaper Kurier.................

[AKIron]

"But Martin Polaschek, a law history scholar and vice rector of Graz University, told Kurier that Austria was governed by coalition governments, including the conservative People's Party and the Social Democratic Party. Between 1945 and 1970, all the nation's chancellors were conservatives -- not Socialists."


I'm betting the US Democratic party today does not consider itself socialist. Of course that does not mean that it isn't.

[Nilsen]

"He did not speak as a historian, after all, but as a politician," Polaschek said.

Norbert Darabos, a ranking official of Austria's opposition Social Democratic Party, sharply criticized Schwarzenegger's "disdain for his former homeland."

"The Terminator is constructing a rather bizarre Austria image," he said.

But many ordinary Austrians seemed to be in a forgiving mood Friday over the gaffes.

"Maybe he has a wrong recollection -- it's so many years since he left," said Wilma Fadrany, 32, a Vienna waitress.

"There must be political reasons for such comments," she said. "You've got to tell the (convention delegates) what they want to hear in order to win them around. Politicians always talk the way it fits into their agenda."

[narsus]

Perhaps he meant trucks with guns on top or something, maybe a BMP like vehicle.

[vorticon]

i am reminded of that simpsons qoute i keep using. since im sure youve all seen it i wont repeat.

[Saurdaukar]

There are no tanks in Austria. [/b]

[GtoRA2]

How come that guy never made it onto the Liberal radio station?





Does lib radio live? What was it called?

[eagl]

He didn't say "I saw tanks on the streets of my home town", he just said he saw tanks on the streets.  Sheesh.  Give it a rest.  Damn anal retentive historians wouldn't give him a break unless the tanks were in his driveway.

Is it so tough to believe that maybe at some point in his early life he travelled outside his hometown to an occupied area that had a red army presence, and that such presence had a profound effect on him?

[rpm]

I liked the part where he fell in love with Nixon. Too bad he did'nt finish that story. It had a funny ending.

[NUKE]

Nixon was a good president and he was re-elected in one of the largest landslides ever.

Clinton was impeached, Nixon only resigned like Clinton should have done.