EBERSWALDE, GERMANY — Chancellor Angela Merkel is a smart woman.
New York Times superpundit Peter Baker wrote on Sunday that Merkel had a conversation on Saturday with President Obama, following her earlier conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Merkel attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Putin to ratchet down in his effort to rename the Crimea as Putinia. According to Baker, Merkel told Obama that after speaking with Putin about Russia’s invasion of the Crimea, she
“… was not sure he [Putin] was in touch with reality… ‘[he seemed to be] in another world’” (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116852/merkel-was-right-putins-lost-his-mind-press-conference).
After your solitary reporter read the article, he received a call from Hermann Gröhe, Germany’s Minister of Health, inviting him to assist him in escorting Putin into the forensic unit of Eberswalde’s Martin Gropius Krankenhaus, one of three psychiatric hospitals in Germany. “Reverend,” Gröhe explained, "Chancellor Merkel asked me to facilitate Mr. Putin’s arrival here in her efforts to stabilize the crisis in the Ukraine.”
“If you wish, you may offer pastoral care to Mr. Putin, who obviously doesn’t want to be here, but I place greater value in your reporting this event to your vast readership, some of whom are even willing to pay for the privilege of reading the news that didn’t happen.”
Gröhe went out of his way to make it clear that former president George W. Bush was not being invited to the Krankenhaus to assist in the evaluation, even though Bush had said in 2001 that he had looked Putin in the eye and immediately understood Putin’s soul. “Look where that got us,” Gröhe said.
Muttering incoherently as he was led into the forensic unit, Putin lambasted the Oscars, which awarded six Oscars to Gravity. “At their glitzy ceremony, nobody mentioned that in the movie, it was one of our premier Russian missiles that struck a defunct satellite, causing a chain reaction and a cloud of debris in space, that was the backstory for the plot. I demand reparations for this grievous offense or, at the very least, an honorary Oscar.”
As of press time, we are unable to report on Mr. Putin’s pathology, as the psychiatrists attending him have indicated that Putin’s case will be a really tough nut to crack.
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