The slipping crown of Angela Merkel

[Right_in_Virginia]

The slipping crown of Angela Merkel
BBC, Nov 22, 2017, Katya Adler

A country proud of its post-war record of political stability and careful consensus-building.  Until, that is, Angela Merkel won the dubious honour of becoming the first German Chancellor since World War Two to fail to form a government.

"What next, Germany?" is the favourite screaming front page headline of the moment here; the question ricocheting across the country from the federal parliament to queues at local bus stops and on endless TV chat shows.

Germans have been rubbing their eyes, still not quite able to believe that their normally staid mainstream politicians may now be hurtling towards an unruly, unexpected snap election.

But not if Germany's president can help it. Frank-Walter Steinmeier fears a new vote will only benefit the far-right.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42075006

[Right_in_Virginia]

Angela Merkel’s Failure May Be Just What Europe Needs
NY Times, Nov 22, 2017, Ross Douthat

In an unpredictable world, it’s always a pleasure to claim vindication for one’s own prophetic powers, and the political crisis in Germany — the inability of Angela Merkel to form a coalition government that keeps her country’s far right sidelined — could easily inspire an “I told you so” from those of us who have criticized the German chancellor and doubted her leader-of-the-free-world mystique.

<snip>

Instead, what she’s delivered is an opportunity for leaders in Germany and in the wider West to learn from her mistakes. For all the understandable talk about the crisis of Western liberalism, the political chaos of the last few years has also demonstrated that many supposed agents of post-liberalism are unready to really push the liberal order to the breaking point.

<snip>

In Angela Merkel’s Europe right now, that should mean making peace with Brexit, ceasing to pursue ever further political centralization by undemocratic means, breaking up the ’60s-era intellectual cartels that control the commanding heights of culture, creating space for religious resistance to the lure of nihilism and suicide — and accepting that the days of immigration open doors are over, and the careful management of migrant flows is a central challenge for statesmen going forward.


Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/angela-merkel-germany-liberalism.html

[Fishrrman]

Her quasi-communist "crown" slipped a long time ago!

[Frank Cannon]

The slipping crown of Angela Merkel

Crown my ass. She wears a beanie.....

[edpc]

I really don’t want the mental image of Merkel and crowning.