The Ups and Downs of Obama's Czech Visit
Reflections from Prague
President Barack Obama came to Prague, likely because the Czechs hold the current and rotating presidency of the European Union. It was a courtesy call and a chance to speak to the world on international policy. Certainly the draw was not the grim-jawed current president, Vaclav Klaus, George Bush’s political mirror-image. Nor was it to shore up the embarrassment of the Czech government having failed a vote of confidence to sustain their own government halfway through an EU presidency. Stuff happens.
But he came and began a courtship, both promising and not without its awkward moments.
The Czechs are a tough audience, courteous and at the same time watchful. Promises are rhetoric and they are not fond of rhetoric. A beer-drinking, pragmatic country, Czechs spent most of the last century paying the personal costs of Western abandonment.
So, when Barack beamed, saying ‘we are all in this together,’ the applause was minor, scattered and, if you looked closely enough, …