# Posted 6:08 PM by Patrick Belton
ANGELA'S ASHES: As recently as June, her party looked likely to achieve an absolute majority in the Bundesrat, permitting it to govern alone and taking Europe, and Euro-American relations, in a dramatically distinct direction to its bearings under Chancellor Schröder. But far from being hailed as Germany's Baroness Thatcher, she arrives at tonight with her place in history instead down as the CDU leader who posted her party's third worst performance in history. And this is an extraordinary shame: a Europe led by the likes of Merkel and Sarkozy, with Chancellor Brown hewing hopefully to a more New Labourite line, would have been one of institutional reform and creativity, comity with the United States in managing the dilemmas of international security, and, just perhaps, renewed European economic growth brought about by financial probity and continued free-market reform. These hopes may not have quite gone up in smoke, but they seem a bit dimmer this evening.
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