Tuesday, January 03, 2012

German President: twisting slowly, slowly in the wind

Embattled German President Christian Wulff was Angie's handpicked candidate for the Presidency in 2010. That was after her previous handpicked candidate for the Presidency resigned after being a little too blunt in public about the commercial advantages of taking part in NATO military expeditions.

Now that the current President is in a scandal over loans and other favors from wealthy businesspeople, as well as heavyhanded bullying of journalists in attempts to suppress the story, Angie is letting the guy twist slowly, slowly in the wind, as I recall one of Nixon's people saying of Vice President Spiro Agnew back in the day. (Robin Alexander, Schweigen in der Union: Bundespräsident Wulff hat nur noch Pflichtverteidiger Die Welt 03.01.2012)

I'm as big a fan of political intrigue as anyone, I guess. But sometimes journalists actually do their jobs and dig up stuff. It's hard for me to see any particular advantage Angie gets from having two Federal Presidents in a row with whom she heavily identified herself having to resign from office. The President is the head of state in Germany; Angie as Chancellor is the head of government.

I also don't see that this has any direct relation to the euro crisis. But Wulff being dramatically shown to be happily in the pockets of the one-percenters can't be encouragement to the EU-minus-one countries to accept Angie's demand that they commit themselves by treaty in March to giving the EU (read: Germany) veto power over their national budgets.

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