Yet the only leaders mentioned in the piece are Barroso, Blair, and Sarkozy. No difficulty in believing they were for Merkel. No one else's opinion seems to matter.

This is just more conventional wisdom from a know-all British journalist (Nicholas Watt). Doesn't matter which newspaper, they all look at Europe through the same kaleidoscope in which the bits always form the same pattern: Brits and the free market know best.

For me the most interesting thing about coverage of the German election is how it reflects the social, political and economic memes of our elites. Hence, Schroder is invariably portrayed as as a cryto reactionary whose dogmatism makes him unable to acknoweldge or accept the realities of globalization, while Merkel is cast as the feisty outsider (a woman, physicist and easterner, natch) ready to shake up the hidebound establishment.

The "realities of globalization", as understood by these elites, is of course that other Western countries must either become a lot more like the United States or succumb to terminal stagnation and decline. Specifically, they must accept an ever widening gap between rich and poor and the principle that the interests of capital and the affluent trump those of labor and the non affluent. The reward which the masses can expect for such <deference> to their socio-economic betters is the promise of lower unemployment, higher productivity and utlimately a "higher standard of living". <snip>

The election in Germany could have been an opportunity to discuss the policy options and priorities with which all Western countries must come to terms but instead, in the hands of mainstream media that is intellectually (and also generally financially) captive to elite interests, it simply became another variation of the tried and true theme of Tired Socialism vs. Trimphant Capitalism.

The whole comment is worth reading, as is Billmon's response.