President has sullied Germany's reputation

For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a request has been filed to lift the immunity of a German president while he is still in office. The state prosecutors in Hanover announced on Thursday plans to launch an official investigation into allegations that President Christian Wulff accepted and granted illicit favours. The political establishment has tolerated Wulff's immoral behaviour for far too long, the left-liberal daily Berliner Zeitung writes: "We have a president whose morality all upright citizens must doubt because their values don't match his. Shop assistants, customs officers, nurses, teachers, clerks, workers - none are allowed to do what Wulff did in his own interest. They have all been left in the lurch by politics - and by the chancellor - in recent months. No one made any serious attempt to free us of this president. Everyone was implicated in one way or another, helping to blur the distinction between what's right and what isn't - merely for reasons of political expediency. The consequences of this moral sullying of Germany's hearts and minds will remain with us for a long time to come."

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