Story from the Globe and Mail. (H/T Andrew)
Excerpt:
The collapse of Europe’s left-leaning political consensus continued Sunday night as Germany’s Social Democrats ended 11 years in coalition governments with a crushing defeat at the hands of a conservative coalition that re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The vote makes Ms. Merkel the latest in a succession of conservative leaders to win strong support in formerly centre-left countries. Her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have governed Germany since 2005 in an awkward power-sharing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).
But last night’s vote allows her to form a broadly right-wing government with the libertarian Free Democrats (FDP), who campaigned on a tax-cutting platform.
[…]The risk is palpable. Similar centre-left parties in Italy and France have been driven to near-extinction by conservative votes in recent years, and European parliament elections this year saw nearly every country support a majority of centre-right candidates.
As if to drive the point home, last night also saw Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, a stalwart of the moderate left, lose his parliamentary majority in a humiliating vote.
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are hawks on foreign policy. But what about Obama? Does he understand the dangerous world we live in, or is his mind still stuck in the ivory tower?
The Washington Times reports: (H/T Hot Air)
The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.
“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.
“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.
“That is correct,” the general replied.
Maybe he should spend less time meeting with dictators, and more time with his own generals?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Hey! I’ve only noticed now! You’ve talked about my country here! Nice!
Spain and Portugal have center-left parties. The elections here in Portugal this Sunday were a win for them, although they lost majority, they keep the government. They sung victory because they’ve lost the elections for the european parlament to the center-right, only months ago. So center-left will form goverment for 4 more years but they have to negociate with the opposition. So that newspapper opinion about them beeing humiliated is VERY exagerated.
I didn’t vote for them. The main reason was that I think it’s bad for democracy to have only 2 parties with any chance of winning, so any vote on the smaller ones would make me happy. And that as really happened! It has been many years since smaller parties had so many votes!
For the first time in many years the 3rd most voted party was the more far right party, Christian conservative, and that may make you happy :) I almoust voted on them too, believe it or not! They had good solutions for the present state of Portugal.
We in Europe are much more centered in left-right politics than your political views and you may see that clearly by the social politics implemented in virtually every country.
I think Portugal could beneficiate from a presidential form of goverment like the USA, though.
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Wow. I am shocked that the Christian conservative party came in third, and happy that you voted for them!
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