TOM LANTOS DENOUNCES GERHARD SCHROEDER AND JACQUES CHIRAC.

“I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone,” Lantos said to applause.

He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq “he told us where to go.”

“I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he’s taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase,” Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

Ouch. And heh.