Germany's invisible Chancellor

Olaf Scholz arrives in Washington with Germans asking where he's been hiding.

You know that the new government has a serious public image problem if Recep Tayyip Erdogan is getting weak at the knees thinking about Angela Merkel.

During a trip to Kiev this week, the Turkish strong man, who once compared Merkel to the Nazis, reminisced that: “Merkel used to arrive holding the key to the solution. No such leader exists at the moment.”

It’s not just the Turkish president who worries about a lack of smarts in Berlin. Among allies, Germany’s new government is increasingly seen as unreliable due to its refusal to be specific about what sanctions Moscow would face in the event of war.

Olaf Scholz. Photo: Shutterstock

Domestically, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been accused of hiding during the crisis - he has barely been seen for weeks. Collapsing polling figures (down 17 percent) suggest he is facing a crisis of authority after less than two months in power.

Scholz’s woes were deepened last week when Haupt-Putinvertseher and former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was offered…