I am glad to see that the German bloggers who followed the presidential campaign are continuing with their work. We need their blunt commentary and analysis.
Sebastian Hesse in hs blog for the Tagesschau has posted his first piece of a 3-part analysis of ‘why the Democrats lost’ when all of the terrible news about Iraq and the economy was working in their favor:
Auch hierzulande macht vor allem ein Wort die Runde: WARUM? Wie
konnte es geschehen, dass eine Regierung mit diesem Suendenregister, –
von fehlenden Massenvernichtungs-Waffen bis gewaltigen
Haushaltsloechern -, so deutlich im Amt bestaetigt wurde? Ich meine,
dass es (grob gesprochen) drei Faktoren waren, die Bush eine zweite
Amtszeit ermoeglicht haben. In drei Teilen dazu mehr: Zunaechst haben
die Demokraten mit John Kerry an der Spitze kapitale Fehler begangen,
mit denen sie sich greifbare Chancen verbauten.
Yes, we are all going through a long period of soul-searching, and I look forward to reading his take on what went wrong.
Meanwhile Michael Backfish continues with his trenchant commentary in his Handelsblatt-Blog a nd reports on something I missed in the mainstream press: evidently Bush is still miffed at Spanish president Zapatero for withdrawing his troops from Iraq and he refused to take his telephone call congratulating him on his reelection. Meanwhile Bush received his predecessor Aznar for a private audience at the White House:
Rückzug aus dem Irak. Dafür empfing Bush am Dienstag Zapateros
Vorgänger Aznar zur Privat-Audienz im Weißen Haus. Der Mann mit dem
Oberlippen-Bärtchen – die spanische Variante des "englischen Pudels".
Bush vergisst nicht – wie Kohl.
Only Wolfgang Harrer with his election blog for Deutsche Welle has discontinued for the time being, alhough he has assured me that in some form or another he will be blogging again soon. Good, we need to hear your voice, Wolfgang!
