Final Word from Monday, January 28, 2008
Jan Švejnar's decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship if elected Czech president was still fresh news when a new question arose. What if he became foreign minister instead? Would he still renounce his U.S. citizenship (or would the U.S. strip him of it)? Právo reported that the Greens might be playing with the idea of nominating Švejnar to fill the foreign-affairs post if he loses the presidential election and if Karel Schwarzenberg quits the cabinet in protest over the return of Jiří Čunek. The CR has had dual-citizen ministers before, but would a Yankee in Černín Palace be acceptable as the CR negotiates a radar treaty with the U.S.? Probably not. Another possibility, Právo said, is that Švejnar will become education minister, in which case the issue of renouncing his citizenship would likely be forgotten. But so might Švejnar be forgotten if he took such a thankless job as that of education minister.[Czech Republic United States of America Mark Twain passport citizenshiop Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]
Glossary of difficult words
A Yankee in Court Černín's court - a word play on Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," in which the hero goes back in time and uses Yankee ingenuity to modernize ignorant old English society;
Yankee - a person from the U.S.; considered derogatory, but Americans usually do not take offense at it;
Count Černín - the person for whom the current headquarters of the foreign ministry was built in 1668;
to strip someone of something - to deprive someone of something against the person's will;
thankless - not likely to be appreciated (education is a highly contested subject between the Left and the Right, which means that progress is slow).