Thursday, September 22, 2005
Another leftist loses an election...and his grip on reality
In an eerie echo of performances by recent Democrat presidential election losers Al Gore and John Kerry, leftist German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose Social Democrats were defeated in Germany’s national elections last week, is insisting that he actually won and should still be the chancellor.
BERLIN - A belligerent performance by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a TV talk show after German elections, which his party narrowly lost, has drawn widespread criticism and fuelled alarm the country could be lurching into a political crisis.
Like most European nations, Germany has a parliamentary system in which the Chancellor, the equivalent of a Prime Minister, is chosen from the party with a parliamentary majority. When, as is the case in the German election, no single party wins a majority, a coalition government is formed by agreement among parties with enough members to total a majority. Schroeder, however, is demanding that votes be counted differently than they have always been counted and insisting that, once recounted as he demands, his party will have won the election. (Sound familiar?) Schroeder’s performance on German television was, to put it mildly, surreal:
A grinning Schroeder first accused the TV moderators of having "an intellectual problem" and not being objective in their reporting and questioning.
Turning to a grim-looking Merkel he said: "Do you seriously think my party will accept this offer for talks with Frau Merkel? ... Under her leadership she will never get a coalition with my party."
This was strong stuff given that Merkel's Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) came in first with 35.2 per cent, compared with 34.3 per cent for Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD).
The CDU/CSU won about 440,000 votes more than the SPD and will have a three-seat majority in parliament's lower chamber, the Bundestag.
Schroeder insists, contrary to German post-war tradition, that the CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party must from now on be treated as totally separate parties. Under this interpretation his SPD would indeed have come in first on Sunday.
Most newspapers said Schroeder had "run riot" during the half-hour TV show dubbed "the elephant round". The Berliner Zeitung, which generally backs the Chancellor, called it "a bizarre appearance".
Other German commenters found the performance disturbing.
Arnulf Baring, a leading German political historian, termed the Chancellor's performance "shocking".
"He spoke on election night as if he was on the verge of carrying out a putsch," said Baring in a B.Z. newspaper interview, adding: "The way he is treating democracy and majority rule is truly threatening."
Members of Schroeder’s own party suggested he may have been drunk. Still others suspect that Schroeder’s intent is to throw the system into disarray and force new elections. Since most parliamentary systems don’t have a rigidly-scheduled national election, like the US, new elections are a possibility any time a coalition government cannot be formed.
The Free Democratic Party, which pulled 9.8% of the vote, would not be enough to put either Schroeder’s SPD or Merkel’s CDU into a majority, but is obviously a much-sought coalition partner. Either major party, with the FDP on board, could then scrounge enough minor-party votes to form a government.
Schroeder’s obnoxious behavior may have hurt his party in this regard, as he may have foreclosed the possibility of FDP participation with an insulting and heated exchange with the head of the FDP, Guido Westerwelle:
"You cannot be taken seriously," snapped Westerwelle who refused to address the defeated Schroeder as "Herr Chancellor" and instead called him "Herr Colleague" given they are both members of parliament and Schroeder is now only acting chancellor.
When Schroeder tried to slap down Westerwelle with a lesson on German politics from the 1960s, Westerwelle swiftly turned the tables.
"I may be younger than you - but I'm not more stupid," said Westerwelle, whose liberals increased their share of the vote to 9.8 per cent and are being sought both by Schroeder and Merkel as a coalition partner.
Following the TV talk show, Westerwelle declared his party would not even hold exploratory talks with Schroeder's SPD.
Like Gore, who, despite several recounts which showed otherwise, apparently still thinks he should have won, and Kerry, who from time to time takes a break from his windsurfing to mutter about “vote suppression”, Schroeder appears unable to grasp reality and accept his loss. Surely it is to some extent an ego thing. Gore and Kerry clearly believe themselves to be superior to George W. Bush (and everyone else, for that matter, at least in Kerry’s case.) It appears equally obvious from Schroeder’s condescending tone that he considers himself superior.
I wonder, though, if there is something more to it. Few people realize that, anticipating the defeat of George Bush in 2004, leading Democrats (Hillary was there, and Joe Biden, just to name a couple) traveled to Norway to meet with the European leftist parties (in European politics, those folks are socialists, by the way) to plan the new world order which would follow the ousting of the evil right-wingers from power in the US. One wonders if, along with discussing the role of the UN in enforcing a world-wide liberal agenda, they may have discussed the Democrats’ playbook for trying to destabilize and discredit electoral results they don’t like.
We all know the Democrats have such a handbook… how to dispute elections when there is no legitimate grounds for dispute. A few copies of it surfaced in the 2004 election. Maybe they shared it with their America-bashing socialist world-government allies from Europe?
By the way, I’m not making any of this up. I read about the leftist conference in Norway on the English language site of a Norwegian magazine or newspaper. But it was a couple of years ago, and back then I wasn’t saving links and pages by the hundred in case I needed them later. I believe I do have a hard copy someplace, and if I can find it maybe I can track down a link or some more information.
BERLIN - A belligerent performance by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a TV talk show after German elections, which his party narrowly lost, has drawn widespread criticism and fuelled alarm the country could be lurching into a political crisis.
Like most European nations, Germany has a parliamentary system in which the Chancellor, the equivalent of a Prime Minister, is chosen from the party with a parliamentary majority. When, as is the case in the German election, no single party wins a majority, a coalition government is formed by agreement among parties with enough members to total a majority. Schroeder, however, is demanding that votes be counted differently than they have always been counted and insisting that, once recounted as he demands, his party will have won the election. (Sound familiar?) Schroeder’s performance on German television was, to put it mildly, surreal:
A grinning Schroeder first accused the TV moderators of having "an intellectual problem" and not being objective in their reporting and questioning.
Turning to a grim-looking Merkel he said: "Do you seriously think my party will accept this offer for talks with Frau Merkel? ... Under her leadership she will never get a coalition with my party."
This was strong stuff given that Merkel's Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) came in first with 35.2 per cent, compared with 34.3 per cent for Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD).
The CDU/CSU won about 440,000 votes more than the SPD and will have a three-seat majority in parliament's lower chamber, the Bundestag.
Schroeder insists, contrary to German post-war tradition, that the CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party must from now on be treated as totally separate parties. Under this interpretation his SPD would indeed have come in first on Sunday.
Most newspapers said Schroeder had "run riot" during the half-hour TV show dubbed "the elephant round". The Berliner Zeitung, which generally backs the Chancellor, called it "a bizarre appearance".
Other German commenters found the performance disturbing.
Arnulf Baring, a leading German political historian, termed the Chancellor's performance "shocking".
"He spoke on election night as if he was on the verge of carrying out a putsch," said Baring in a B.Z. newspaper interview, adding: "The way he is treating democracy and majority rule is truly threatening."
Members of Schroeder’s own party suggested he may have been drunk. Still others suspect that Schroeder’s intent is to throw the system into disarray and force new elections. Since most parliamentary systems don’t have a rigidly-scheduled national election, like the US, new elections are a possibility any time a coalition government cannot be formed.
The Free Democratic Party, which pulled 9.8% of the vote, would not be enough to put either Schroeder’s SPD or Merkel’s CDU into a majority, but is obviously a much-sought coalition partner. Either major party, with the FDP on board, could then scrounge enough minor-party votes to form a government.
Schroeder’s obnoxious behavior may have hurt his party in this regard, as he may have foreclosed the possibility of FDP participation with an insulting and heated exchange with the head of the FDP, Guido Westerwelle:
"You cannot be taken seriously," snapped Westerwelle who refused to address the defeated Schroeder as "Herr Chancellor" and instead called him "Herr Colleague" given they are both members of parliament and Schroeder is now only acting chancellor.
When Schroeder tried to slap down Westerwelle with a lesson on German politics from the 1960s, Westerwelle swiftly turned the tables.
"I may be younger than you - but I'm not more stupid," said Westerwelle, whose liberals increased their share of the vote to 9.8 per cent and are being sought both by Schroeder and Merkel as a coalition partner.
Following the TV talk show, Westerwelle declared his party would not even hold exploratory talks with Schroeder's SPD.
Like Gore, who, despite several recounts which showed otherwise, apparently still thinks he should have won, and Kerry, who from time to time takes a break from his windsurfing to mutter about “vote suppression”, Schroeder appears unable to grasp reality and accept his loss. Surely it is to some extent an ego thing. Gore and Kerry clearly believe themselves to be superior to George W. Bush (and everyone else, for that matter, at least in Kerry’s case.) It appears equally obvious from Schroeder’s condescending tone that he considers himself superior.
I wonder, though, if there is something more to it. Few people realize that, anticipating the defeat of George Bush in 2004, leading Democrats (Hillary was there, and Joe Biden, just to name a couple) traveled to Norway to meet with the European leftist parties (in European politics, those folks are socialists, by the way) to plan the new world order which would follow the ousting of the evil right-wingers from power in the US. One wonders if, along with discussing the role of the UN in enforcing a world-wide liberal agenda, they may have discussed the Democrats’ playbook for trying to destabilize and discredit electoral results they don’t like.
We all know the Democrats have such a handbook… how to dispute elections when there is no legitimate grounds for dispute. A few copies of it surfaced in the 2004 election. Maybe they shared it with their America-bashing socialist world-government allies from Europe?
By the way, I’m not making any of this up. I read about the leftist conference in Norway on the English language site of a Norwegian magazine or newspaper. But it was a couple of years ago, and back then I wasn’t saving links and pages by the hundred in case I needed them later. I believe I do have a hard copy someplace, and if I can find it maybe I can track down a link or some more information.
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