Turning the Other Cheek to Terrorism

The Nord Stream terror attack by Ukraine-and-Friends should have changed everything in Germany. It has not. Yet.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, scandals used to have consequences even in the West, at least sometimes. In the ancient US of 1974, Richard “tricky Dick” Nixon had to go because of Watergate, which – unlike “Russiagate” (aka Russia Rage) was real, if hardly sensational by our standards today.

Even in late-1990s, early post-unification Germany, the career of a giant like Helmut “chancellor of unity” Kohl took a lethal hit from a rather boring affair turning on creative accounting in party finances. Indeed, very biased media hype and liberal pearl-clutching was the whole brouhaha’s real essence. Without it, Angela Merkel might never have been able to knife her old benefactor Kohl in the back, and Gerhard Schröder might not have made chancellor.