It was not the first time on Wednesday that Olaf Scholz felt compelled to react directly to the opposition leader in the general debate of the budget week in the Bundestag.
This only works well if the attack obeys the saying that it is the best form of defence.
A reaction from the chancellor alone puts the opposition leader in a favorable light.
Friedrich Merz, it was said the first time, managed to lure Olaf Scholz out of his reserve.
Or does the chancellor accept him, keyword respect, as an equal?
That would not be a bad move for reviving parliamentary mores.
But an almost unleashed Scholz was obviously all about the attack.
Again and again he used the rhetorical figure that his government and the coalition acted faster than the CDU/CSU could think.
It was more difficult to sustain the assertion that the Union had propagated the exit from coal, but then thwarted the entry into alternative sources - and now we have the salad.
Does Scholz need a scapegoat?
Between the lines that should probably mean: I can muck out the Augean stables that the Union left us.
The fact that the members of the Greens and the SPD cheered distracted from the fact that they were always on board at federal and state level - and did not let the Union row hard enough at their command.
Does Olaf Scholz still need her as a scapegoat?
It wasn't just Merz who provoked him to do this.
Unlike his predecessor, Scholz is not yet thriving in crisis management in terms of public recognition.
This, in turn, rubs off on the impression left by his politics.
Merz correctly recognized that the nuclear issue, even if it is just one cog among many, is the symbolic key to this weakness.
After the gas levy, the "stretching operation" now threatens to become a sign of inability and slowness.
Just as Scholz blames the Union for failures, he will not be able to do the same with the Greens.