Last week Austria and Nine Balkan Countries Effectively Told Merkel Go to Hell.

The chancellor is now desperately backing off her previous positions, slowly but surely,  with an emphasis on slowly. She simply cannot admit failure. Ultimately, inability to admit mistakes dooms every politician.

In 2008, then senator Hillary Clinton lost the nomination to Barrack Obama for the simple reason she would not admit her vote for Bush's absurd war in Iraq was an error.

Let's fast forward to today and ponder the Spiegel article Opinion: Merkel's Humane Refugee Policies Have Failed.

Last September, Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly from Syria. Her calculation that the rest of Europe would support her backfired. She now finds herself isolated at home and abroad as conditions worsen for asylum-seekers.