God must like Gerhard Schröder. first, the lord sent the Great Flood that inundated eastern Germany, and, lo, as the Chancellor bestrode the broken dikes with a serious mien and a generous hand, his ratings began to creep up. For several months, his Social Democratic Party (SPD) had been trailing Edmund Stoiber's Christian Democrats by 6 or 7 points. So calling the Sept. 22 election was a no-brainer: goodbye, Gerhard; hello, Edmund.
Then came a second godsend, those rumblings of war in faraway Iraq. A consummate opportunist, Schröder started playing the pacifist card. No, Germany would not participate...
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