Final Word from Monday, October 24, 2011
We'll say the same thing about presidential candidate KarelSchwarzenberg that we wrote four years ago about JanŠvejnar. Schwarzenberg will get our theoretical vote if hedeclares that he has no chance of winning but will run on aplatform of telling Czechs the way it is. Imagine what an impressionhe could make as a moral authority if he put asideall the political double-talk and stressed the need to get thisgreat country in shape by cutting the waste, the corruptionand the crap. It wouldn't win him many votes from the verylawmakers he would be indirectly criticizing, but it would joltsome voters out of their state of apathy. However, we're afraidSchwarzenberg no more has this in him than Švejnar did.Švejnar, as candidate, quickly showed himself to be a greatwaffler, trying to say the right thing to all his various constituencies,including the Communists. To do it right, Schwarzenbergwould have to say things that lost him not only the Communistvote, but also that of his protector, Miroslav Kalousek.
Glossary of difficult words
cut the crap - (mildly vulgar slang) to get to the point; to state the real situation;
to jolt - to give a surprise or shock to someone in order to make him or her act or change;
to waffle - to speak or write without saying anything important or useful;
constituency - a body of voters in a specified area; a body of customers or supporters.