[Mr.Buttocks]

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1564255,00.html:950cb]<<<Link>>>[/url:950cb]

[quote:950cb]
Germany's conservative leader Angela Merkel faced acute embarrassment last night after aides admitted that she had plagiarised a speech used by Ronald Reagan in a 1980 US presidential debate for her own television election duel with Gerhard Schröder, the Social Democratic chancellor.

Some 21 million Germans watched on Sunday night as Mrs Merkel and Mr Schröder slugged it out in their only live TV debate of Germany's election campaign.

Yesterday, though, Ms Merkel's officials admitted that her closing speech to the voters - asking whether they were better off or not - had been closely modelled on the famous lines Reagan used in his face-off with President Jimmy Carter.

"Frau Merkel was certainly inspired by Ronald Reagan," a spokesman for her Christian Democratic (CDU) party told the magazine Der Spiegel.

At the end of the 90-minute duel, Ms Merkel looked into the cameras with a warm smile and declared: "In two weeks you will make your election decision. Perhaps it will help if you answer a few questions when you make your decision: Is our country better off than it was seven years ago? Is growth higher? Is unemployment lower? Is there less bureaucracy? Are our pensions and health care system secure?'

"If you answer all those questions 'Yes', then I think it's obvious whom you've decided to vote for. But if you have doubts, if you don't want this course to continue, then you have a choice with the CDU and CSU [the CDU's Bavarian sister party]."

In the 1980 debate with President Carter, Reagan closed with the famous statement: "Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls. It might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago?

"If you answer all of those questions 'Yes', then I think your choice is very obvious as to whom you will vote for. If you don't agree, if you don't think that this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have."

Ms Merkel's aides last night pointed out that the lines reflected arguments that she had made repeatedly in campaign speeches ahead of the September 18 general election.

TV polls after the debate revealed that most Germans thought Mr Schröder had won, though more than half of all viewers thought Ms Merkel had performed "better than expected".

The CDU leader is still on track to become Germany's next chancellor, though, with opinion polls giving her party a more than 10% lead over Mr Schröder's Social Democrats.

Nevertheless, Ms Merkel will not want to be associated with Reagan, who died last year at the age of 93.

Some Germans remember him favourably for his 1987 appeal to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall, and as the architect of reunification.

Many others, however, recall Reagan's presidency with loathing, because of his nuclear weapons build-up and his savage attacks on the welfare state.

Mr Schröder's Social Democratic party (SPD) wasted little time in putting the boot in, accusing Ms Merkel of "cheap plagiarism" from her "ideological teacher".

"Frau Merkel is fooling the voters," the SPD party secretary, Klaus Uwe Benneter, said. "She's imitating the tricks of the arch-conservative ex-American president."[/quote:950cb]

[Coleman]

lol, you would think someone MIGHT notice ha

[TGB!]

Anything to get Schroeder outta there, I say is good medicine.

[Pyro]

Not like they used a good president's speech.

[Sgt&gt;Stackem]

Originally Posted by Pyro

Not like they used a good president's speech.

Reagan helped this country, I know thats not what you want but he did