Reply #9: No. They are a solid, respectable newspaper in Austria.

[JDPriestly]

They are pretty middle of the road and reliable, but then most Europeans are more socialist than the Democrats. Sarkozy is supposed to be pretty conservative by European standards, but he would be further left than even Kucinich, I think in many respects.

You may not have heard of Der Standard because it is Austrian. German newspapers tend to be better known -- like Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which I think is more widely known perhaps.