Alexis, where's that big-shot swagger now?

The new radical leftist prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipris, is meeting with Angela Merkel presently.  Gone is the badass talk of mere weeks ago.  Now, it's all leaks about a "positive spirit."

Look, pal, Angela and everybody in the EU and at the European Central Bank just want to know where your damn concrete plan for clawing your country's way out of its black hole is.

Rick Moran at The American Thinker distills the matter to its essence:

The man who suggested that Merkel is some kind of latter-day Nazi who has threatened to seize German assets in Greece to pay off World War II reparations is coming hat in hand to Germany begging for more cash – no strings attached.

He is not going to get it unless he surrenders completely – something he cannot do and survive politically.  It has been fascinating watching Tsipras as he's gone from being an arrogant, far-left rabble-rouser, demanding that the EU recognize his "mandate" and eliminate all the restrictions on the government's budget, to this pathetic leader coming to Germany for more cash after reality has hit him over the head.

Pretty sad.  One of the cradles of Western civilization reduced to collapse and irrelevancy.