Final Word from Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Those seeking to explain Václav Klaus's erratic recent behavior have examined all the angles: Revenge, senility, grumpiness, narcisism, Lisbonophobia, treachery, illness. What is it, asked Marek Švehla of Respekt, that has made the man commit so many errors all of a sudden? Klausologists have generally overlooked one of the oldest of all possible explanations. Perhaps the old kook has simply fallen in love (and we don't mean with himself). The tabloids haven't failed to notice that wife Livia has been decking out her own place in Prague 8, and there are rumors that she has even plundered the family savings and put it into some additional immovable assets for fear that her seldom-at-home hubby will squander it all on his pretty young thing. Is Klaus the happiest man in the world and finding it hard to compartmentalize? Perhaps we'll never know. As one spy says in John Le Carré's new novel, A Most Wanted Man, these are the bits of our lives we'd give our eyes to talk about as we get older, but we never can.[Czech Republic treaty European Union lover mistress]