Another day, another celebrity puts his foot where it doesn't belong.

I LOVE Roxy Music. To me there is nothing more relaxing than sitting in the back yard, in the summer listening to "More than This" (off of the Avalon album) with a glass of wine in hand. Life, is good. I got hooked on the band when the Logical Husband and I lived in Germany where the band was very, very popular.

Now I love the band and their music, but when it comes to social commentary I just do not lok to musicians for "direction" - and with good reason. Bryan Ferry is the lead singer of Roxy Music in an interview last week with die Welt Am Sonntag, had the following to say about Nazi Germany:

"The way that the Nazis staged themselves and presented themselves, my Lord!
"I'm talking about the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer and the mass marches and the flags -- just fantastic. Really beautiful."

Now I get that he is talking about the iconography. However, to say that the Nazi's did anything "right" even if you are talking about their effective use of images for propoganda's sake is not a smart move at all. Jewish leaders in Britian, on cue, responded with outrage and demands that Ferry be dropped from his gig as a model for a large British retail chain. Ferry, equally on cue, apologized.

" I apologize unreservedly for any offence caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were solely made from an art history perspective.
"I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi regime, and all it stood for, evil and abhorrent."

To give the British Jewish Community credit, they did the right thing (unlike the "aggrieved" community leadership in the Don Imus affair) accepted the apology and dropped the boycott.

"We do welcome the fact that he has issued a swift comment that there was no intention to condone the Nazi regime," said Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council.

The left loves to bash America as a crash, uncivilized society - often pointing to Europe as an example of civilization and enlightenment. On one hand, as a member of the "smarter than America" class, you would think that Ferry would have known better. One the other, they have a point. At least in Britian, when you say something stupid and offensive and then apologize, the apology is ACCEPTED. That kind of graciousness is sorely lacking in American discourse today.