"The Empire Of Boredom"

George Packer reports from Berlin, where Angela Merkel was just re-elected:

Germany held an election yesterday, though you might not have noticed if you don’t live there. I barely noticed, and I’ve been in Berlin for the past three weeks. True, there are posters of candidates’ faces on streetlamps around the citycharmingly un-slick posters like those of a race for county commissioner in central Ohio. The photo of Angela Merkel, with her pudgy smile, makes the German chancellor look like a grade-school principal. But even compensating for my American-level expectation of political drama, there has been a distinct lack of excitement in the air. After a candidates’ debate, the headline in a German tabloid wisecracked, “Yes We Gahn” (to get the joke, you’d need to know that gahn means yawn, which had to be explained to me).

Of course, boring politics in Germany is always good news. In successful countries, politics is always boring. It's life that's interesting.