Final Word from Thursday, April 24, 2014
Just as anger isn't a political program, as Tomáš Masaryk famously said, sour grapes aren't diplomacy. The more time that passes, the more the terse U.S. reaction to the cancellation of the Temelín tender seems unbecoming a great power that takes into account changing global factors and the needs of its allies when expressing foreign policy. Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Petr Drulák said in HN today that he explained to U.S. officials in Washington immediately after the tender was canceled that the reasons were purely economic and that there had been a fundamental change in the price of energy since the tender was announced. The U.S. statement omits this crucial point. Real diplomacy would have been for the U.S. to acknowledge the new circumstances and to commit to working with the CR to bring down the cost of nuclear power, without sacrificing safety, to reflect the new energy reality. [Czech Republic energy United States Westinghouse Garrigue enlargement expansion]
Glossary of difficult words
sour grapes - anger or resentment at not achieving something one wanted; disparagement or criticism of something that has proven unattainable;
terse - sparing in the use of words; abrupt;
unbecoming - (of a person's attitude or behavior) not fitting or appropriate; unseemly;
to omit - to leave out or exclude, whether intentionally or forgetfully.