Sarah Paine

He did it.

And then he comes back and he gets his B.A.,

at Yale and graduates with honors.

And then he becomes a representative for a district in Texas after he's already made himself a millionaire by the oil business that he started.

And then he becomes ambassador to the U.N.,

followed by U.S.

representative to the PRC.

It's before we had formal diplomatic relations, so he's the guy who's setting that off, becomes director of the CIA, and then he is Ronald Reagan's understudy for eight years as vice president.

He is incredibly fit for the job.

And Helmut Kohl is equally fit for the job.

He is the longest-serving chancellor in German history since his illustrious predecessor, Otto von Bismarck.

He starts out getting a PhD in history and political science.

He also starts out in business, but then he works for state government, initially as a representative, then as a governor.

And he becomes chairman of his political party, the Christian Democratic Union, for a quarter of a century.

Once he gets in, he decides he's going to buy up East Germany one tourist at a time.

How does that work?

East Germans turned out really like to travel.

West Germans had always been able to travel to East Germany, or they long had been able to travel to East Germany, but East Germans definitely could not easily travel to West Germany.

Why?

Because they have a habit of staying.