Bild laments loss of pet minister

“Defence Minister Guttenberg: the resignation!" Bild exclaims. The Berlin tabloid, which supported Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg right to the end, prints extracts from the speech the Minister made on March 1 following two weeks of controversy over his thesis marred by plagiarism: "I have reached the limits of my strength... It's the most painful decision of my life... I was not elected to be a minister of self-defence." This popular minister from an aristocratic background, who seemed the epitome of decency and righteousness, fell victim to his own precepts. "It's the grey mediocrities in power, the envious" that brought down the "greatest political talent of the country," bewails the editor in chief of Bild, suggesting that this episode has widened the gulf between politicians and the people. Not all the newspapers are taking the event as a tragedy. Die Tageszeitung, for example, leads with: "Guttenberg, faster than Gaddafi.”