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Be careful, this
line is not secure. Two members of the cabinet - Ministers
Gross and Tvrdík, naturally
- were caught on police wiretaps making calls to the proprietor
of a local cathouse. Neither man would discuss the calls,
although Tvrdík insisted the lady wasn't a "madam". Several
of their colleagues have been caught making their own clandestine
phone calls but no madams figured in any of them, either.
Just people like Libor Procházka, suspected of swindling
millions in the IPB bank crash. ODS front man Vlastimil
Tlustý, who enjoys the president's respect like no other,
felt a need to speak with the former bank director three
times while he was under surveillance. Klaus also thinks
highly of Tvrdík's abilities, or so he suggested when he
accepted his resignation, which in itself certainly didn't
speak volumes about Tvrdík's competence. He had no sooner
handed in his resignation than he withdrew it and handed
it in the following day. The reasons he gave for leaving
the defense ministry had to do with recent budget cuts.
He can't reform a wasteful military without any money.
Other departments will also have to make do with less now
that the government is taking public-finance reform seriously.
It's proving to be a tough sell and the premier and finance
minister have been riding herd over the Social Democrats
to keep them in line. The Communists want no cuts in the
welfare state, the Civic Democrats want more and the government
has only one vote in parliament to fend them off. That
vote could well come down to Jan Kavan, who's still moonlighting
as the chairman of the United Nations general assembly.
He already blew one close budget call with his absence,
despite the government footing his huge commuter bill to
and from New York. Kavan has indicated he will give up
the UN in return for another plum assignment, like becoming
the first European Commissioner for the Czech Republic.
But he now stands accused of destroying security documents
while serving as foreign minister and the current foreign
minister, Cyril Svoboda, is making sure everybody knows
about it. The media began speculating that Svoboda was
doing the bidding of the Bush administration, which wanted
to fix Kavan for supposedly trying to thwart US interests
abroad. The more likely scenario is that Svoboda too has
his sights set on becoming the first commissioner and doesn't
mind adding to his already impressive list of enemies to
get the job. Among those is the president, whose sparring
match with the foreign minister over the EU led him to
call a meeting of all party leaders to discuss the issue.
The meeting will be remembered for nothing except the picture
of Klaus and Communist leader Grebeníček standing side
by side on the balcony of the historic presidential retreat
at Lány Castle with champagne in their hands. The rabidly
anti-EU-NATO-US Communists were no doubt also pleased with
Klaus' comments in a German newspaper declaring that foreign
troops (EU-NATO-US) would not be welcomed in the Czech
Republic. Of course, the decision isn't his to make, but
he fired a warning shot by issuing his first veto. Klaus
had promised not to use his veto to shape official policy,
but the Zoo Act, which would put mom-and-pop bear dancing
out of business for good, was too much for him. The government
quickly overrode the veto and started turning its attention
to an even bigger complainer. TV Nova had begun stepping
up its criticism of the government after the broadcasting
council was sacked. The government responded by hinting
that it would revoke Nova's license once the new council
was in place. The pressure finally became too great for
Nova's shadowy owners and they dismissed the station director,
who now has to settle for being just a senator. Another
personality who fell from grace was Dominik Haąek, the
goalie who led the Czech hockey team to Olympic victory
in Nagano in 1998. Haąek pummeled an opponent during a
match on in-line skates, landing the man in the hospital.
In the wake of the Czech hockey team's inglorious exit
from this year's world championships, the media was ready
to pounce. It was suggested that the Dominator had always
been a Terminator, it's just that everyone had been taken
in by his wholesome looks. And there were other would-be
terminators out in force. One man was apprehended after
threatening to poison the nation's supply of Coca-Cola.
Another caller warned that he would begin lacing hospital
food with cyanide unless a bank account was opened for
him abroad with $10,000,000 in it. A suspect was nabbed
in that case as well and so far there have been no reports
of anyone dying from eating hospital food.
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