Germans love political scandal. Usually, though, it is of the rather absurd and pedestrian variety. Two years ago, for example, a politician from the Green Party was forced out of office for using frequent flier miles, racked up through job-related trips, for a personal vacation. One has to be careful around here.

The most recent scandal, however, is a bit juicier. It involves Laurenz Meyer, the (now former) General Secretary of the country's largest opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Meyer resigned -- or, rather, was forced to resign -- on Wednesday amid revelations that he had received payments adding up to DM 250,000 ($171,000) upon leaving his former employer, the energy giant RWE, to enter politics. The only problem? He continued working for RWE even while directing CDU party strategy in Germany's largest state of North-Rhine Westphalia. German newspapers -- especially considering the pre-Christmas dearth of hard news -- can talk of nothing else on Thursday.

As usual, the tabloid Bild leads the charge. In his daily column called Post from Wagner, columnist Franz Josef Wagner writes a short letter to Laurenz Meyer in which he commiserates with Meyer over the double penalty he is now paying. The first, of course, is Meyer's plunge into joblessness. The second: In a last-ditch effort to keep his job, Meyer donated a large chunk of the payoff ($107,570) to a children's charity. Wagner also writes, "I don't judge you, because you were just one of many moneygrubbers in Berlin. ... It actually has nothing to do with you, but with the business morals in Germany."

The staid, right-of-center daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which usually isn't uttered in the same breath with Bild, takes a surprisingly similar approach. The paper, discussing the standard politician biography that starts in business and continues into public office, writes, "It makes lobby work much easier when the lobbyist isn't confined to a lobby group but is a member of parliament or has some other politically influential position." This, says the paper, leads to numerous opportunities for conflicts of interest and questionable abuses of power. "In short, political and business interests are often bound closely together and there is a need for more transparency. That's why it is correct to seriously consider requiring politicians to make public their 'secondary employment.'"

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung is not surprisingly rubbing its hands over yet another in a series of scandals and conflicts that has rocked the German opposition this year. The paper argues that the head of the CDU, Angela Merkel, has been severely weakened by the humiliating backbiting and squabbling -- and further, that the wolves may be circling. "The head of a party (Merkel) can have no closer supporter and partner than her general secretary. Every successful attack on a general secretary is an attack on his boss. ... In this situation, one wonders who has the most schadenfreude, the rivals Merkel has left in her wake in her rise to the top, or the rivals of the future. It's hard to say."

Aside from party politics, there is one other topic that strikes the fancy of German commentators on Thursday: The ruling of the European Union's Court of First Instance against Microsoft. The court on Wednesday backed up an earlier European Commission fine against Microsoft of €497 million ($668.8 million) and ordered the software giant to offer a Windows version without Windows Media Player. Furthermore, Microsoft must release the Windows source code so that competitors can create server software that is able to run on computers with Microsoft Windows at least as well as Microsoft's own server software.

The financial daily Financial Times Deutschland celebrates the decision. Finally, the paper says, the cartel watchdog of the European Union has made the correct decision. "The only thing that is missing," writes the paper, "is that the sanctions imposed must actually lead to more unrestricted competition in the software market." Furthermore, the goal of clearly defined software-market rules is still a long way off. This decision, though, "is a good start."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine cries foul against this interpretation. The paper argues that the EU has no clear idea what the future of software regulation will look like and poses the question, "When is the state allowed to set limitations on a company's creativity for the protection of the free market?" This question, writes the FAZ, hasn't been adequately addressed. The result is that "an intervention at the moment has an aftertaste of arbitrariness. Those who demand state intervention, also have to establish where that intervention should end. There is no legal definition as to what an operating system is allowed to do and what not. The door has been opened to even more arbitrary decisions -- and the market will be damaged."