Time for the Saddam Card - Mr. Grecian Formula is Getting Desperate
The BBC reveals:

German newspapers have doubts about Gerhard Schroeder's chances of winning a second term as chancellor in September's elections following his early campaign launch on Monday.

There is a general perception that Mr Schroeder's speech to the Hanover rally was very much an attempt to shore up his Social Democratic Party's core support, rather than a bid to attract floating voters.

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This cautious approach also extends to Mr Schroeder's attempt to bring Iraq into the election campaign with a rejection of German involvement in any military "adventures", the paper adds.

The playing of the "Saddam card" itself prompts considerable comment.

Schroeder and Bush are far apart on Iraq

The right-of-centre Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung believes that while Washington could have discounted a certain amount of anti-US rhetoric from a man who has "his back to the wall", Mr Schroeder went too far in advocating a distinctive "German path".

Without certainty that Saddam can be contained diplomatically, it says, the chancellor's refusal even to help to finance military action "does not increase the pressure on Baghdad but increases our distance from America".

The SPD's "German path... would lead to isolation and lack of influence", it concludes.

Also on the right, Die Welt accuses Mr Schroeder of "reaching for Saddam Hussein as a drowning person reaches for a life-jacket".

It shares the view that the chancellor is shoring up his core support by "shaking into action the depressively phlegmatic election campaigners in his own ranks and gathering the aged representatives of the peace movement behind him".

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But the Frankfurter Rundschau, a left-of-centre daily with links to Mr Schroeder's party, doubts the chancellor's motives.

There was nothing essentially new in what Mr Schroeder said about Iraq yesterday, so why lay so much stress on it now, it wonders.

It notes his declaration at the start of his speech that the SPD "wants to win" and, given opinion polls showing that most Germans oppose military action, it concludes that "previous explanations are wholly inadequate and lead us to suspect that this is the main reason".

With any luck, this loser will be gone in September in the continuing parade of victories by right of center parties in Europe since 9/11. Could it be the end of Euroweenies? Nah, but one can always hope.