It's been a rough week. Among other things, I've come down with some kind of bug that's stolen most of my voice -- a definite concern given what I do for a living.

In my phlegmatic stupor, I managed to miss the fact that our State Department spokesman has taken to using ethnic slurs to describe what used to be our allies.

As reported here and pointed out to me here, the story, which appeared on Wednesday, went in relevant part like this:

The United States sneered at plans by four European countries to create an autonomous European military command headquarters near Brussels separate from NATO, referring to the idea's proponents as "chocolate makers."

In unusually blunt language that drew surprised gasps from reporters, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher scoffed at Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for continuing to support the proposal that they first introduced at a mini-summit in April.

He described the April meeting as one between "four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit" and then referred to them collectively as "the chocolate makers."

But when the State Department sinks this low, there's something seriously wrong. As we approach the second anniversary of our collective wail of "Why does the world hate us?," the answers to that question are becoming clearer. And our "leadership" is making it worse.