What else we got wrong

Objective assessments of Václav Klaus's political views are even rarer in the Western media than they are in the CR. The politically correct thing to do in the foreign press is to mock his lack of political correctness. Le Figaro even falsified Klaus's record by saying that he rejects the U.S. missile shield in the Czech national interest, which is patently untrue. However, we also made a big mistake about Klaus in 2008 (click here). We thought there was a very good chance he would succeed in forcing Mirek Topolánek out as ODS chair and PM, appoint a caretaker cabinet led by someone beholden to him, and become the de facto head of the EU during the Czechs' presidency. Klaus came close to achieving this, but Topolánek bounced back after his defeat in the regional and Senate elections. He received encouragement from EU leaders, who no doubt feared a Klaus- led EU presidency would be an embarrassment for them. They might have been forced to actually take seriously some of his objections about where the EU is headed. [Czech Republic European Union radar United States]