Robert Amsterdam

For anyone who has doubted that Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) wasn't the closest genetic clone to Putin's United Russia, one need not look further than the latest comments from Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, who this week lashed out in aggressive criticism of the United States.

Laying the blame squarely on the U.S. leadership for the crisis, Steinbrück reached for the apocalyptic: "The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system. The long term consequences of the crisis are not yet clear. But one thing seems likely to me: the USA will lose its superpower status in the global financial system. The world financial system is becoming multipolar. (...) Wall Street will never be the same again. A few days ago there were two Mohicans left remaining out of the investment banks. Now they no longer exist. (...) The world will never be the same as it was before the crisis. The whole world over we must adjust ourselves to lower rates of growth and--with a time lag--unfavorable developments on labor markets."

Sound familiar? Well, it should ... like many in the SPD, Steinbrück is reading from the exact same script of virulent anti-American talking points coming straight out of the Kremlin. The mimicry is actually astounding. Just three weeks ago, Dmitry Medvedev issued his challenge to the United States, remarking that "the world must be multi-polar. Single polarity is unacceptable." Back in June, he also was the first to blame the United States for the financial crisis, declaring that "the inconsistency of the USA’s formal role in the world economic system with its real capabilities was one of the central reasons for the current crisis."

It may be bad enough that one of Germany's historically great political parties now acts in the interests of a foreign nation, but even worse, this anti-American narrative is a strategic disaster, investing the party's future wholly dependent upon the victory of Sen. John McCain.