Leave it to the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) to get German commentators riled up. On Friday, NPD members of the Saxon state parliament left the plenary hall during a minute of silence held to commemorate the victims of Nazi violence. But that wasn't all. During a parliament debate following the ceremony, a speaker from the NPD party referred to the Allied bombing of Dresden as "mass murder" and as a "Holocaust of bombs" -- definite no-no's in Germany, especially with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp approaching.

The most immediate result of the scandal is the chorus of voices calling for a renewed effort to ban the NPD from the German political landscape. A 2003 attempt at prohibiting the party failed when it was revealed that a number of the party's leading functionaries were actually moles sent by the German police to infiltrate the party. Most of Germany's major dailies on Monday carry an editorial on the goings on in Saxony.

The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung leads the way with a somewhat forced attempt at finding the silver-lining in the cloud of NPD extremism. Maybe, the paper posits, some good will come out of the affair. Namely, the voters who enabled the NPD to take seats in the state parliament in the first place may now finally recognize the party for the racist, neo-Nazi group that it is. But the optimism is quickly abandoned and the piece continues in a self-flagellating style often found in German opinion pieces relating to right-wing extremism and the Holocaust. Referring to German historians and politicians who have, in recent decades, occasionally shown a weakness for using the word "Holocaust" in all manner of contexts, the paper writes, "The general disgust over the impertinent behavior of the neo-Nazi parliamentarians ... diverts attention from the fact that the relativization and mitigation of (Nazi crimes) is not an exclusive specialty of the (NPD)."

Befitting its role as a newspaper devoted to keeping tabs on the dangers of the right wing, the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung prints an NPD editorial on its front page. A rhetorical question serves as the piece's introduction: "Did anyone expect that, when neo-Nazis were voted into a parliament that they would behave any differently than neo-Nazis?" The piece then argues that a renewed attempt to ban the party merely shows the helplessness with which Germany attempts to deal with the extreme right. "It's not the NPD parliamentarians that are the problem, rather their voters."

Instead of focusing on the NPD, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung chooses instead to comment on the call to ban the party made by the left-wing Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). The paper comments that such a ban would fit in well with the party's aims. "And even if the constitutional court once again decides against a prohibition, the party would be happy to have its anti fascist credentials confirmed." Germany's centrist parties should not allow that to happen, the paper writes and argues that allowing the NPD to speak is likely the best way to ensure that voters turn away from the party.

Finally, the center-right Die Welt argues that one need not pay attention to everything the NPD says or does. Writing that it is, of course, the height of shamelessness to compare the bombing of Dresden with the Holocaust, the paper says that politicians should avoid getting overly excited by -- and thus attracting attention to -- such NPD provocations. "The NPD should be stopped when they can be; the party's events should be banned when they break the law." And politicians and the media need to keep a close eye on the party. But, "a cool head is needed. Nobody is forcing the politicians to stumble over every brown stick in their paths."

Aside from commenting on the NPD, German newspapers on Monday are all over the map focusing on mainly wonkish, German political topics. One editorial, however, on United States President George W. Bush's decision to make reforming social security through partial privatization a priority for his second term, does stand out. Printed in the Financial Times Deutschland and contributed by J. Bradford Delong of the University of California Berkeley, the article points out that, while social security does need some help, it hardly warrants the amount of attention Bush is now promising to pay it. Arguing that the enormous budget deficit and the long-term problems with Medicare and Medicaid are much more important, Delong posits three potential explanations for Bush's choice of priorities. The first, is pure incompetence. Maybe, he writes, "Bush and his inner circle simply don't understand the importance of the other budgetary problems." The second is a more ideological reason. Maybe Bush feels it necessary to erode the successes of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. The third possible explanation is the influence of lobby groups -- his social security proposals would definitely be in the interest of Wall Street.