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With only ten more days until the grand election, it’s time for our equally grand finale of the Obama Check. Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats (CDU) will have the honor of being the final checkee.  As a fellow head of government, Merkel deals with Barack Obama on a regular basis. Did those interactions leave a mark on the German Chancellor? Find out after the break and see the final score of our series.

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Welcome to the penultimate edition of the Obama Check! It’s only one more installment until the grand finale. Today we’ll be testing Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Chancellor candidate of the SPD. Steinmeier has a clear advantage over our previous checkees – he has actually met and touched his Obamaness, and there are pictures to prove it. So did Steinmeier catch some of that Obama glamour? Let’s find out.

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“It’s futile for us to even try and compete with the Internet as far as speed is concerned,” says Frederik Pleitgen, correspondent for CNN in Germany. Last week, we welcomed him as our final guest to our seminar “Reporting America,” a student-run seminar we organized at the Free University.

Pleitgen reviewed articles submitted by seminar participants to iReport. He also took the time to talk about his experience as a CNN reporter on assignment in Germany, Burma, Iraq and elsewhere.

We gladly took the chance to ask him some questions about the future of 24h news channels in the digital age. Here’s the interview.

This is what went down on Fox News this morning, according to Salon.com:

[Co-Host] Kilmeade and two colleagues were discussing a study that, based on research done in Finland and Sweden, showed people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s.

And this is what Kilmeade (the brown-haired guy) managed to say about that study:

I am getting a strange Déjà-vu to 1933, when another dark-haired guy was talking about the need to have a “pure society”.

Also, I don’t even understand how he can get from A to B on this one. According to Salon, the study refers to people who stay married, not implying any racial or ethnic conclusions at all.

But luckily, Kilmeade is so stupid pure he can’t even coherently insult people – what the hell does “marrying other species” mean? Does he have an ape girlfriend at home? Maybe they can do a sequel on that for tomorrow morning.

Good Day and welcome to the third installment of our five-part series the Obama Check. Today it’s Renate Künast’s of the Green Party turn. She, as the previous checkees Guido Westerwelle and Oskar Lafontaine, will be tested in five categories, the rating criterias of which you can read here.

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Welcome to the second instalment of the Obama Check, where we test German politicians’ Obamaness. In our inaugural edition we checked Guido Westerwelle, today it’s Oskar Lafontaine’s turn. The chairman of the Left Party will be rated in five categories, you can read the criteria here.

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In the Superwahljahr 2009 and with only four months to go till the election to the Bundestag, tapmag brings you a special new series, the Obama Check.

German politicians craving for voter attention hope to get at least some of that Obama-glamour for themselves. We will test how obama (new adjective!) the candidates of the five major parties really are.

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As the global economic crisis questions many long-hold beliefs about American and European economic policy, the U.S. press has discovered that some answers might be found across the Atlantic. Germany offers a fine case study for the advantages as well as drawbacks of increased government interference to bring the economy back on track.

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Is the German response to the economic crisis slower because of German culture, New York Times correspondent in Berlin Nicholas Kuhlisch asked last week. His idea is that the German love for rules and Ordnung, embodied in the strict adherence to each and every sign in a German swimming pool („Nicht vom Beckenrand springen!“, „Nicht auf den Kacheln rennen!“, „Keine Schuhe im Barfussbereich!“), can also explain the transatlantic furor over economic stimulus packages.

German swimming pool: Too many rules?

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Die schrecklichen Ereignisse von Winnenden wurden inzwischen medial verarbeitet und hundertfach durchgekaut. Was dabei heraus kam, war definitiv keine Sternstunde der deutschen Medienlandschaft. Auseinandersetzungen mit der Berichterstattung über den Amoklauf findet ihr unter anderem hier bei Spreeblick und hier bei Stefan Niggemeier (via Medienelite).

Die Tagesschau rühmt sich derweil, das Video mit den letzten Minuten des Täters nicht gezeigt zu haben – wohl aber ein verstörtes junges Mädchen – während das ZDF erklärt, das “Fälschen im Internet kinderleicht” sei (Video). Na sowas. Fast alle Medien haben inzwischen Fotos des Täters, Bilder seines Elternhauses, nennen teilweise die Adresse eben jenen Hauses, und Bild schießt wie immer den Vogel ab und druckt am Tag nach dem Amoklauf Bilder angeblicher Opfer (!!).

Viele Politiker ergehen sich ganz betroffen in Verbotsideen – Sportwaffen verbieten, Ballerspiele verbieten, Einlasskontrolle an Schulen. Einige dieser Ideen mögen sinnvoll sein, doch die tieferen Ursachen einer solchen Tat berühren sie nicht. Wie es mit 17 war, daran können sich viele scheinbar nicht mehr erinnern.

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