And who did the Germans pick to lead their country to ruin? An east German named Angela Merkel.
Who can figure the Germans?
As a German friend of mine explained it to me one time, they think they're better than everyone else and they are born followers.
Exactly!
On picking Merkel....I wouldn’t describe the path she arrived upon as ‘selected’.
Kohl fell from ‘grace’ over a oil company affair where they gave his party X-amount of money to speed up the process of a fuel project in Germany. Kohl took the money to a non-German bank (more or less to hide), and used the money as a funding device for lesser candidates in his party to get a ‘boost’. Not a penny went into his pocket or the crew around him.
The scandal came out....loss of confidence occurred. Then this weird event unfolded.
As the news media laid out who knew of the fund...you could cross off about a dozen of the big-name characters. So it wasn’t just Kohl...but the whole top level of the party affected. The only person who seemed to be unaffected? The Kohl-recruited East German...that he’d personally brought in and given a simple cabinet post to show how ‘integrated’ they were with the Easties.
Merkel then ascended up as the clean-up arrived. Schroeder (the opposition party replacement) crapped-out early on in the first term....but still carried enough votes for a 2nd term win. Severe loss of confidence fell into play, and that’s how Merkel came to win the election in 2005. The rest is history.