In Bad Times for Capitalism, Socialists in Europe Suffer

"A specter is haunting Europe," writes Steve Erlanger in the New York Times, "the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse." German voters turned their noses up at the Social Democratic Party this past Sunday, giving it only 23 percent of the vote, its worst performance since World War II, the article notes. Even as American conservatives decry President Obama's fiscal stimulus and health care proposals as shifts toward European-style Socialism, "it's Europes's right, not left, that is setting its political agenda," Erlanger observes.