Dear Mr. Simon,

The overnight change in the tone of the German media has been noteworthy. Between the positive comments about the State of the Union address and the breathless reports about Dr. Rice's visit in Berlin today, you would think the good old days of the Cold War have returned. The Germans are nothing if not realists. In light of a successful Iraqi election Germany has come to the conclusion that the effort to bring democracy to Iraq will work and they are scrambling to be on the right side of history. Nothing succeeds like success. Regards from Heidelberg,

David A. Lange

I absolutely don't agree with the judgment of your German correspondent. True, the anti-Bush tone isn't as belligerent as it was before the election. (Hard to beat anyway!) But I can't see that much has changed.

Iraq is now routinely called the "Iraq adventure" instead of the "Iraq disaster". But most journalists are still very negative and prefer to write and talk about all possible (and impossible) problems. We're even reading about the good, old "conflagration" in the whole Middle East" again, this time due to the possible spread of democratic desires, which of course is probably not in our interest - or so they say.