PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: CBS Saturday Morning Concludes With German Author Comparing US To East Germany.

Before CBS Saturday Morning officially headed off into its uncertain future, co-host Michelle Miller used her final episode to interview German author Daniel Kehlmann about his recent novel about G.W. Pabst, the silent film director who originally fled the Nazis only to return and make propaganda movies. Naturally, much of the conversation was about life in a dictatorship, but unnaturally, towards the end of their conversation, Kehlmann would compare the current United States to the East Germany his wife grew up in, and Miller offered up little resistance to the crazy idea.

I’m so old, I can remember as far back as February, when CBS News hosts exclaimed that East German-levels of censorship were the knees of the bee. Europeans Don’t Get Free Speech, and Neither Does CBS News, Apparently.

No wonder the Germans were weeping by the end of it all. Vance had called everybody in the audience on their bluff. “You’re not afraid of your own people, are you?” Of course they are. (And also, let’s not kid ourselves, either: They have their reasons, especially if they’re Germans.)

You know who also is terrified of the people? CBS News. Yes, CBS had a true banner Sunday for itself this weekend by tagging along with Vance to Munich. And they made it clear they were on the side of the Europeans weeping about having to listen to the angry voices of their constituents. Margaret Brennan made headlines pontificating about the origins of the Holocaust from too much “free speech” — a topic for tomorrow’s Carnival of Fools because few in the media have more willingly donned clown makeup in recent weeks — but really it was 60 Minutes’ remarkable praise of Germany’s anti-free-speech laws that took the cake for me.

Including this incredible quote: