Moral balancing

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise that the U.S. embassy's conference in the Senate this week on transparency and ethics has received little media attention. It was planned before it became clear that the current government is at least as "morally challenged" as the ČSSD-led coalition that was taken to task in the State Department's 2006 Report on Human Rights. If the media were paying closer attention, the conference's sponsors might have to explain how Chief Prosecutor Renáta Vesecká can present a convincing case about procedural transparency, when just this week doubts about the handling of the Čunek case were confirmed by Internal Affairs. Like any diplomat talking about transparency, U.S. Amb. Richard Graber is in a tough spot with this conference. He doesn't want to walk the moral high ground, but appearing indirectly to condone corruption isn't a good idea either. [Czech Republic United States of America ambassador ODS state division interior ministry police]