American Notes Politics

South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings jumped on the Japan-bashing bandwagon in grand -- and tasteless -- style last week. Speaking to a group of workers at a home-state roller-bearing manufacturing plant, the loose-tongued 70-year-old Democrat said he had a message for Japanese officials who have questioned the competence of the U.S. work force. He advised them to think of the atomic mushroom cloud and recall that it was "made in America by illiterate Americans and tested in Japan."

While the reference to the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki drew loud applause from the assembled factory workers, it attracted swift condemnation from the White House and many of Hollings' congressional colleagues -- not to mention Japanese survivors of the 1945 blasts. The Japanese government said little about the remark when it was widely reported in Tokyo. But the Senator was unrepentant. "I'm defending against America bashing," he said. "When you defend America, they want you to apologize."