Final Word from Monday, August 20, 2012
It's hard to pinpoint when Karel Schwarzenberg's credibility
reached the point of no return, but it was perhaps when he
nearly fell off his chair during David Rath's televised speech to
Parliament. It would normally be ill-bred to kick such an
erstwhile idol when he is down, but Schwarzenberg remains vice
PM, foreign minister and chief Kalousek apologist, so all criticism
is fair game. It's the overpriced IT contracts at his ministry that
are the latest subject of concern. Schwarzenberg has devoted
nearly as much attention to Pussy Riot as to his ministry's own
corruption scandal. It might be possible to accept the excuse
that the "system is broken" if the whistleblower in the matter
hadn't been threatened on the street by a Russian-accented man,
but the slightest chance that the foreign ministry's IT system is
being messed with by the Russian mafia or Russian spies should
be enough to wake up even Schwarzenberg.[Czech Republic information technology Jakub Klouzal]
Glossary of difficult words
sleepyhead - a sleepy or inattentive person;
pinpoint - to find or locate exactly;
ill-bred - badly brought up or rude;
erstwhile - former;
apologist - a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial;
fair game - a person or thing that is considered a reasonable target for criticism, exploitation or attack.