Meet Angela Merkel, Dale Carnegie graduate
Posted by Charles II on February 15, 2012
Eleni Chrepa, Bloomberg:
Greek President Karolos Papoulias slammed Germany’s finance minister for recent comments about his country as stalled bailout talks stoked tensions between Greece and the northern European countries funding its rescue.
“I don’t accept insults to my country by Mr. Schaeuble,” Papoulias, who fought in the resistance against the Nazis during World War II, said in a speech today. “I don’t accept it as a Greek. Who is Mr. Schaeuble to ridicule Greece? Who are the Dutch? Who are the Finns? We always had the pride to defend not just our own freedom, not just our own country, but the freedom of all of Europe.”
Papoulias’s comments came as Wolfgang Schaeuble and other European officials pushed Greece to gouge more cuts out of its budget to qualify for a new bailout that would stave off an economic collapse. Schaeuble today blamed Greece’s New Democracy party, the second largest, for holding up agreement on a new rescue package and his deputy, Steffen Kampeter, compared Greece to a “bottomless pit.”
Granted, it’s very slightly unfair to blame Merkel for the comments by her Finance Minister, but its her administration. Aren’t the riots in the streets enough for the Germans to stop throwing gasoline on Greece?
This is why the US has generally been successful at the application of soft power, at least up until Bush 2. At least in the past, it was able to refrain from being an a–hole in public.
3 Responses to “Meet Angela Merkel, Dale Carnegie graduate”
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Phoenix Woman said
This is the woman who recently went on French TV to in essence order the French to reelect Sarkozy. That didn’t work out the way she’d planned.
Charles II said
When a hero of the Greek resistance to the Nazis reminds everyone of that history, it’s probably time for the German in the room to smile and shut up because, whether right or wrong, you’re not going to change anyone’s mind.
MarkH said
Though the Greeks are clearly dysfunctional (in that they refuse to collect taxes on the rich) the pressure on them is somewhat similar to what Mitt Romney, or any Republican for that matter, had in mind for America in 2009. Austerity to a rich person like Romney or an ideologue who simply doesn’t care is a medicine we must accept. Cameron did it in the U.K. and they rioted. Now we’re seeing riots in Greece. American should take a good look because this is what the Republican promise America.
We need a Dem Congress to enforce some taxation which will let us bear some austerity and get our debt under better control.