Breakfast at bruderle
Is it actually still about rainer bruderle? No. It's about eye-high and power games, about joke-tellers and alpha-madchen, it's about the fact that even manners sometimes make other manners sick.
This – and infinitely more – has been said and written and broadcast for just under a week, in the most sophisticated newspapers of the republic as well as in tweet-instant format. We read about women who torture their husbands to hospital, and about the hope that old heavy souls will get stressed out by the linen-using wife. And you can't always tell immediately from what is thought and meant and how, whether you are looking into a shit-storm – or into the "suddeutsche".Nevertheless, rainer bruderle is at the beginning of the story. And with him the "stern-editor laura himmelreich. She, 29, has written about him, 67, that he stared at her breasts in a bar a little over a year ago, during what was actually a professional meeting.
No comment
Since then, rainer bruderle is suspected of being a sexist, and laura himmelreich has the reputation of being a clarion caller. How both see this themselves is unknown. Laura himmelreich has only briefly gone on record with "deutschlandfunk" as saying, she wanted to portray rainer bruderle as a man of the past. Since then she has been silent. Rainer bruderle himself did not comment the story with a word.
The "stern a weekend passes, a sexism debate is held on the talk shows, and then a so-called parliamentary week begins in berlin. Whenever the delegates meet, rainer bruderle invites selected correspondents for breakfast on wednesday mornings. There are sandwiches, coffee, water, juice – and a conversation about political current affairs. Usually it is cheerful and somewhat whimsical; just as rainer bruderle presents himself. Maybe he is like that.
This time, however, it is not clear until wednesday morning whether rainer bruderle wants to have breakfast. Because if he invites them – laura himmelreich is also invited. And, the "star already announces it online: she will participate. It sounds like a showdown. It sounds as if rainer bruderle is to be placed.
Up to the top female the FDP: for rainer bruderle there is nothing to win now. Nothing at all. If he cancels – he will look like a coward, for the second time in ten days. He invites and remains silent, too – and besides, the breakfast could turn into a high-noon copy.
Eight to seven, the invitation e-mails rush into the editorial offices. A quarter past ten, half an hour before the start of breakfast, there are already 40 instead of the usual 25, and in the end almost 75, plus five photographers and four camera teams. What happens then is – nothing. Rainer bruderle is silent; that's what he said before. That is what he says now. "No comment." Laura himmelreich, accompanied by several "stars-colleague, sits very far in front, very close to the wall, and also she is silent. It is not a showdown. At best a show.
He must go through
Rainer has to go through with it now, say the liberals. What they don't say, but know: the label "lusterner alter mann" (old man from lusatia) will stick to rainer bruderle all through the election campaign as a "greedy snob" to peer steinbruck. Even though the sexism debate has nothing to do with him anymore. Even if he was only a draw with his bar speeches.
But also laura himmelreich does not determine the discourse a bit. For a long time now, she has no longer been writing, but her editors-in-chief have been announcing what she thought and wanted to say. A media lawyer from colonia publicly chides her for being "chatty and says: "the lady overestimates her own importance"." On "deutschlandradio but a political scientist praises laura himmelreich as a sensation, as the unveiler of the "internals of power mechanics". An insecure young woman sits at the breakfast table.
At breakfast, a decidedly serious rainer bruderle appears, heading straight for his seat. Otherwise he buries his guests with a handshake. Every. One can also find this old-fashioned. Or even worse. If you want it.