Gerhardt Schroeder Gets Himself A Job

The last Western leader to run on an anti-Bush platform is moving on to greener pastures;

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faces mounting accusations of “disgusting” sleaze after accepting a top job on a Russian-German gas pipeline project that he helped set up in his final weeks in office.
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State-owned Russian gas firm Gazprom announced last Friday that Mr. Schroeder will become supervisory board chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline Co., a joint venture between Gazprom and German firms E.ON and BASF to build a pipeline through the Baltic Sea and pump Siberian gas to Germany.
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Analysts and politicians from all parties, including Mr. Schroeder’s Social Democrats, balked at the notion of a German leader taking Russian paychecks and said the move smacked of favoritism, given Mr. Schroeder’s close friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Putin were instrumental in arranging the joint venture, announced two weeks before Germany’s September election.
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The affair also revived criticism that Mr. Schroeder’s ties with Mr. Putin led him to overlook abuses of democracy and human rights in Russia.
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The $6 billion project has caused a diplomatic row with Poland and the Baltic states, which are being bypassed by the pipeline and stand to lose gas transit revenues as a result.
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Mr. Schroeder did not attend the debate yesterday in the Bundestag, where Greens Member of Parliament Matthias Berninger called the job “politically disgusting.”

Gerhard Schroeder a sleazy double-dealer? Say it isn’t so!
If he’d followed the lead of Blair, Howard, and well… Bush – perhaps he’d still be chancellor! You’d think a Canadian head of state would like, notice there’s a pattern there.