The US loses an ally

Alexander Vondra, the current Minister of Defense and former Czech Ambassador to the US has resigned.

After a series of scandals as well as the general unpopularity of the current government of which he was a fixture, Vondra felt he had lost the mandate from voters, as the above article notes. The ProMoPro scandal had to do with his handling of the rotating Czech Presidency of the EU, in which a public relations firm was paid a whole lotta cash for promotional materials and marketing strategy. While he was not directly implicated in the scandal, his office was seriously compromised, and he was never able to regain the support of the Czech population or ODS' coalition partners.

Nevertheless, Vondra has been and is one the biggest boosters of Atlantic cooperation in the Czech Republic. His departure will affect Czech management of the Euro-Atlantic relationship; even if policies do not change, the attention to which Vondra gave to relations with the US will almost certainly be reduced. US Ambassador Norman Eisen will have to increase his presence and visibility in Prague to attract the attention of any new Minister of Defense, as well as to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs; even on matters not directly related to guns-and-rockets, Vondra was a player whose large rolodex and savvy diplomatic skills created many opportunities to cement and maintain the US-Czech partnership on a variety of fronts. 

It will also be interesting to see what is in store for Mr. Vondra after he leaves. A spot at AEI or Heritage would certainly not be out of the question; indeed, due to the relative weakness of a think tank-government nexus in Prague, a policy stopover in a foreign capital seems like a natural fit for a man whose talents lie exactly in this area. In either case, US policymakers should recultivate relationships with others in the foreign policy community in Prague, and adjust accordingly to a future MoD that may not be as willing or, more likely, as competent as Mr. Vondra. It is a loss for both the Czech Republic as well as for US interests.

A Small Problem

I can't get anything done this evening. I'm clicking "refresh" on the page of NRO's "The Corner" like an addicted lab rat, even though I know that there's not going to be much information until 1 am here, and probably not anything really interesting until 7 in the morning. I'm not as bullish as Michael Barone, but I am relatively optimistic. It could be a long night.

Even in the rain....

The Naked Cowboy keeps on keepin' on.

Bloomberg Endorses Obama

Michael Bloomberg has come out and endorsed Obama, and there are details about the endorsement here. But one line that was especially interesting, and which is not in the updated article is where Mayor Bloomberg states, "I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics."

Of all the reasons to endorse a politician of any stripe, this is perhaps the worst; it explicitly subordinates democratic deliberation to technocratic engineering. The whole point of democracy is that we are engaged in a moral debate about the fate of human beings and what they wish to do; we are not building a better transmission for an automobile. This technocratic view, that we can treat society as a machine that will simply  bend to the will of "scientific" knowledge is indeed antithetical to democracy, and creates a Comtean attitude to a society that exists for the planners, rather than for the individuals that inhabit it. In the context of climate change, it is a step toward increasing interference by the state and unelected transnational bureaucrats in the affairs of what has been the private sphere, and crowds out free thinking even in science, as Bjørn Lomborg has tried to make clear.

Vote for Obama! More technocracy!