Super Friday Hangover
How could Germany have possibly felt any better about itself than after Friday’s breathtaking victory against Argentina? I wouldn’t know. But strangely, on that very day, Chancellor Merkel’s government managed to receive its lowest ratings yet. Nobody is satisfied with the way things are developing here, it seems – or failing to develop, I should say. The health reform is about as convincing as the tax reform is. And that’s not very convincing at all.
The more things change (and they are changing), the more they stay the same. And nobody wants this. Nicht wirklich (not really).
Just about any German publication you would care to mention has been hammering the Chancellor and her coalition government with everything it has - and from whatever direction it chooses. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is still waiting for the Chancellors missing strategic “social-political concept”. The Berliner Zeitung finds the grand coalition to be anything but grand and has nothing better to say about it than that it has a proven record of being very effective at self-preservation. Die Welt compares Merkel’s work to a giant and plan-less mosaic piece in which just a few of the smallest stones have been all too cautiously and rather haphazardly shoved into place.
But where has all your confidence gone to, Germany? We’ve been here already. As a matter of fact, we were here just a few short weeks ago. Up until a very short time ago, it was anything but clear as to whether or not a certain Herr Klinsmann would be able to keep his job as national coach. Nobody spared any criticism on him or his methods and we all know that had the German team lost a single one of the matches it has so gloriously won, Klinsmann would be back in California now as a national persona non grata – and not here now as a new national hero.
A silly comparison? Sure it is. Klinsmann wasn’t hired with his hands tied and his mouth gagged. Klinsmann only has to win the World Cup. Merkel has to reform and restructure an entire nation that has expressed in no uncertain terms that it has no desire to be reformed and restructured – at least not “here with me”, start with the other guy first, okay? What on earth where you expecting, Germany? This was the government you wanted. You have hired a coach that can’t win. She is not supposed to win, much less make it to the quarter finals.
You see the more things change (and they are changing), the more they stay the same, German voter. And that is precisely what you wanted. Wirklich.
Comments
Just sit back and relax, here's how it works: Polls and surveys, whatever they say, they say nothing. Someone faked them to make'em bring across a message.
By the way, not that Merkel didn't say it, but the other half of the Government, that's where people might be upset with. Taxes are pumped up after campaigning that there would be tax cuts instead? So before point fingers at the people, get some facts...
Nice rant though.
till; July 2, 2006 12:55 PM