The key to victory in 2012 for Obama...

... the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

"If you think balanced-budget amendments are the stuff of madmen or dreamers, you were in for a surprise this month."

Writes Bloomberg columnist/Harvard lawprof Noah Feldman.

No, not the requirement of the U.S. debt-ceiling agreement that Congress vote up or down on such an amendment -- everyone knows that proposal will be dead on arrival. Rather, it was the joint recommendation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that all 17 euro-area members adopt constitutional amendments by next summer that would require balanced budgets by specific target dates.

In the context of the world’s current economic troubles, how could responsible, economically sophisticated leaders think it is a good idea to impose an inflexible constitutional debt ceiling? Merkel and Sarkozy are, after all, a far cry from Rick Perry.

Read the whole thing. Proposing an amendment — even passing it — doesn't make anything actually happen, Feldman informs us. "Constitutional commitments are only convincing when they credibly correspond to elite interests over the long haul."

What's with powerful women and thick bumpers of bangs?

Drudge is — I think — implicitly asking with this alignment of photographs:



What drives intelligent women to that hairstyle? Are they thinking something like I don't want those feathery bangs...



... or the classic Louise Brooks straight-across look...



... but I can't have my forehead just out there to be gazed at!



What's wrong with foreheads? Is it that the forehead symbolizes the mind, and a woman can't have you looking straight at that? The intelligence must be filtered. There must be a buffer zone of femininity, so there must be some hair veiling the forehead — the theory seems to be. But why the bumper look that we see in the Drudge trio of Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice, and Maureen Dowd?

The German muticultural ideal — "multikulti" — has "utterly failed," says Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As Germans slip further into the belief that the country is "overrun by foreigners."

How difficult — liberating? — it must feel for Germans to admit that they feel this way. Merkel is attempting to moderate: "We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here."

Impression. But what is the truth?

"Few would have foreseen … that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent."

President Obama delivers inapt remarks by video. 

Bizarrely echo-y video. He's in a cozy room at the White House. Where is that echo coming from? They needed to tweak it so it would sound right amplified outdoors — would sound like he was there. But he was so not there. And now the video with the inappropriate reverb will reverberate forever on line.

Also at the link, you can see Hillary Clinton's remarks. She's there in person, surrounded by space that makes the echo-y effect seem natural and right. And yet, she too seems wrong. Because she is not the President. We see shots of Merkel and Sarkozy, looking glum. They are the leaders of their respective countries. Why has the United States sent this woman? This woman lost the Presidency to that man who won by posing right here at the Brandenburg Gate... or no: Obama tried to pose right here at the Brandenburg Gate when he went to Berlin during the campaign, but Angela Merkel said no, and poor Mr. Obama was forced to do his Berlin-posing at the Victory Column. And now, he's here at the Gate at last, via inapt, inappropriate video through which the grim visage of Chancellor Merkel cannot stare. The German woman who opposed him will have to stare at the American woman who opposed him. Ha ha. Few would have foreseen.…

Barack and Angela.

Another caption contest:



I'm thinking: Ugh! Another American President with hands!

"It was supposed to be a homage to the American lifestyle and the new U.S. President."

We noticed that American products and the American way of eating are trendy at the moment. Americans are more relaxed. Not like us stiff Germans, like [Chancellor Angela] Merkel."

Re Obama-Fingers, the German fried chicken product.

Oh, yes, we are relaxed... until we're not.

And, by the way, not only are your chicken fingers racist, calling your Chancellor "stiff" is sexist. And if you think I'm stiff for saying that bitching about a woman's stiffness is sexist, that is doubly sexist.