German officials are more cheerful than usual these days. They are expecting -- or at least hoping really hard -- that the majority of UN members will favor their campaign to get a permanent United Nations Security Council seat. Germany has been angling after the seat for years and on Wedensday officials were so giddy they didn't seem to care if, as a new permanent member, they would be granted veto power or not.

Hold the drool, says the left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung. All this back-patting is just silliness. Instead, the paper says Germany should take a hard look at the reform commission report outlining the most pressing socio-economic, ecological and security problems the UN needs to address. "If the German government really is interested in strengthening the UN, it should halt its campaign for a permanent council seat and help to implement the genuinely important recommendations of the panel's report," the paper writes.

The Financial Times Deutschland agrees and says too little attention is being paid to the finer points of UN proceedings -- particularly the body's rapport with the United States and its attitude on preemptive strikes. "In all this din about a permanent seat for Germany, one aspect of yesterday's report on UN reform seems to have been drowned out -- the 16 experts have given the US government a serious rap on the knuckles. Pre-emptive strikes, according to the report, may be necessary sometimes. But the way in which Bush attacked Iraq is not the way to go about it."

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung sees Germany's lurch after a permanent seat the same way it views Italy's insistence that Germany not get the seat -- as each nation looking out for its own interests. "The UN is only as good as its members allow it to be," the paper says. "For the international community, it is exactly that, a community of 191 nations with 191 interests." The suggested reforms, it writes "are really an honest attempt at modernizing the UN." Such modernization is necessary if the troubled body is to recapture its status. "Never in the history of the UN was the organization so forced to so intensively look inside itself," the paper says.

Germans are also gloating over German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's apparent diplomatic success in convincing Putin to back down on the ongoing Ukrainian election crisis. Schroeder apparently made several calls advising Putin to soften his stance and to accept the fact that new elections may be inevitable. Here's a little catch up in case you missed it: Massive protests broke out in Ukraine after the results of a clearly falsified Nov. 21 presidential election put president Leonid Kuchma's protege, Viktor Yanukovych, in power. Opposition supporters took to the streets and have since virtually shut down the government. Their claims have received the support of Europe and the United States. Putin at first, stood by the election results, but then changed tacks on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Schroeder told German parliamentarians that the only way Ukraine can solve its current crisis is to hold new elections. He also said that both the European Union and Russia have a "vital interest" in a democratic Ukraine.

Hogwash, says the daily Berliner Zeitung. "Russia has no interest in a democratic Ukraine. What advantage does Russia get from a democratic Ukraine? Schroeder, one could say, is lying. It is not true. The truth is, Schroeder says what Putin wants to hear. Worse yet. Schroeder only says what Putin wants to hear." When the two are on the phone, it is "not Russian, but Putinish" that the two speak, the paper says.

The Financial Times Deutschland also spears Schroeder for his overly gentle dealings with Putin. In an editorial cartoon the paper shows a sweating and insecure Schroeder on the phone with Putin. The cartoon follows the progress of the conversation in six segments and in each one Schroeder becomes more and more sycophantic. Putin ends the conversation abruptly and Schroeder, eyebrows furrowed, with sweat dripping off his face, ends up worrying he may have done something to upset "poor Putin."