Panzers Forward Steaming

I am not making this up.

There was an after-dinner salute to the group's outgoing chairman, Scott G. Stewart, and someone thought it would be fun to pass around a "College Republican Hymnal" of some of Stewart's favorite decades-old songs that had been sung by the Party of the Right, a Yale group that's part of the school's debating society.

"I think they're hilarious," Stewart, now with the Leadership Institute, said yesterday, noting how dated and over-the-top they are.

So the delegates stood to sing the hoary favorite "Stomping Out the Reds," which is sung to the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves."

The chorus goes: "Stomping out the Reds, stomping out the Reds/ We'll advance rejoicing, stomping out the Reds!"

The first verse is: "Meet the Left in action, put them all in traction/ Get great satisfaction, bashing in their heads!"

The last verse begins: "Bayonets bright gleaming, panzers forward steaming . . . "

Panzers? Nazi tanks?

Ah, those exuberant Yalies.