Final Word from Monday, May 9, 2011

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When we wrote that TOP 09's scandal is the way it created a monster called MiroslavKalousek, a well-intentioned reader warned us that Kalousek wouldn't take kindlyto being put in the same company as the "monsters" Hitler and Stalin. Scarcely amonth later, Deputy Chief Justice Eliška Wagnerová of the Constitutional Court saidthat Kalousek was behaving like the Nazis, and sure enough, the comment causedthe normally even-keeled Kalousek to get all hot under the collar. He'll have anotherchance to nearly explode today when he reads in Respekt how James de Candolecompares him to Goebbels. People across the political spectrum, from Jiří Pehe toVladimíra Dvořáková to Petr Hájek, are warning that the cabinet's "reforms" couldlead to a rise in extremism. It's worth considering the scary possibility that if andwhen the extremists rise to power, their leader will be none other than Kalousek.