Did you forget this part of the USA Today article about the "Snub" of Vaclav Havel? That right wing ideologue, Vaclav Klaus, is a typical vindictive, right wing jerk, isn't he.
>>" Vaclav Havel, the president of Czechoslovakia and then Czech Republic for 13 years, was not invited to the signing of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty by President Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, which took place in Prague Castle's Spanish Hall, where the playwright-politician gave his farewell speech to a standing ovation from the Czech Parliament.
Was the ceremony snub Obama's revenge because Havel, along with 20 other ex-Central and Eastern European leaders, signed an open letter to the American president last summer that warned of a menacing Russia and complained that their region was "no longer at the heart" of U.S. foreign policy?
"No, that would have made the Americans invite me," joked the spry 73-year-old in a rare interview at his office here near the gold-domed National Theater.
The treaty-signing guest list of politicians and dignitaries was determined by the Prague Castle office, now presided over by President Vaclav Klaus.
Castle spokesman Radim Ochvat said he did not have the answer to why Havel was not invited.
Klaus, the conservative Thatcherite critic of the European Union, was Havel's archnemesis — the anti-Havel — for as long as the Czech lands have been free from Soviet domination.
During this period there have been only two presidents, both named Vaclav.
Klaus, a populist-pragmatist, has accused his predecessor of being a dreamer and downplays the role of active dissent in the fall of the communist system.
But Havel was not miffed at the oversight.
"I'm glad, I am very busy," said Havel, who is preparing for the U.S. debut in Philadelphia next month of his latest play Leaving, about a politician who can't get used to being out of office. "<< |
