A SHORT HONEYMOON. A poll discussed in today's Tageszeitung (Berlin) shows that the ruling SPD would probably lose big if it were up for election today, rather than a few weeks ago. Today, according to the poll, the SPD's ruling prime minister, Gerhard Schroeder, would lose to the conservative Christian Democrats' Angelika Merkel if there were a direct election. I would render the Tageszeitung's headline as "SPD crashes and burns." The SPD is now paying the piper in a sense: instead of being able to fulminate against U.S. foreign policy, they must now begin to tackle Germany's dismal economy.