Sometimes it’s good to only have a week to correct a mistake. A week ago, Anne gave Will on her panel discussion about the triell and the result was as predictable as it was boring. Jens Spahn praises Armin Laschet, Malu Dreyer praises Olaf Scholz, Katrin Göring-Eckhardt praises Annalena Baerbock. This stole valuable analysis time from the other two guests.
Because the third and last Trielli took place on Sunday evening, Anne Will had no choice but to change the experimental arrangement. Instead of discussing the triad, the participants discuss a topic whose importance is greater than any other. Title of the program: “One week until the election – what is the climate worth to us?“Could have been a good idea, with Saskia Esken, Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner, the chairmen for the SPD, Greens and Christian Lindner, because Armin Laschet is triumphantly prevented, the Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier sits in the group. He always comes in like that a bit like the mild grandfather, but, as should be shown, has his own methods of hijacking a discussion group.
It is not easy to get an adequate say in such a group of seasoned wasters of speaking time, but the SZ journalist Cerstin Gammelin tries again and again to grapple in between and, relatively at the beginning of the program, attests to all four parties that their election programs on the topic of climate protection are not a reality fit. Mainly because nobody honestly explains to the population what is in store for them.
One would like to be there to see how such a show is being prepared. Anne Will and her staff, as Hansi Flick would say, regrettably thought it was a good idea to start off with Habeck and Lindner asking whether a possible coalition between them could fail because of climate protection, which leads to very detailed explanations . If it weren’t for writing a TV review, now would have been a good time to go to bed.
Bouffier takes the floor and simply doesn’t give it up anymore
However, you would have missed the most interesting part of the program: How Habeck and Lindner, who would both like to become finance ministers, treat each other with conspicuous appreciation, repeatedly agree with the other or smile or nod pleasantly at their contributions. Both know that after the election they will certainly sit together in all possible exploratory rounds and then probably in a joint government, regardless of who the third partner is. And neither of them give the impression that they think that’s bad, on the contrary.
The hardest thing is Saskia Esken, who is clearly the least likely to have a say, which is also due to the fact that Anne Will slips away from the conversation more and more. That in turn has a lot to do with the friendly, smiling grandfather from Hessen. Because he practices a method with which he strains the patience of everyone else to the utmost, even in CDU committee meetings or Prime Minister conferences: He takes the floor and simply doesn’t give it up anymore.
Even when Esken, who Bouffier repeatedly addresses as Eskens, makes it clear that she now wants to get on with it again and Will vigorously interrupts the Hessian head of government, he continues calmly. “I don’t think it’s fair,” Will says helplessly to Bouffier’s torrent of speech. And then the show comes to an end in a way that no talk show host can please: the topics of the day are switched abruptly and without a closing word.
Peter Fahrenholz hopes that talk shows don’t always invite the same guests. Because political discussions need exciting arguments instead of well-known points of view.