(c) Petr Novák, Wikipedia

By Sarah Kolinovsky

As a generation of kids who spent most of our lives under the “judgment” of President George W. Bush, we are no strangers to having a sometimes-wacky, out-of-touch president. In fact, making fun of our president was something of a national pastime in the mid-2000s. Luckily for us, people in the Czech Republic love to make fun of President Václav Klaus — we now have one less reason to feel homesick!

What’s the biggest reason for the scorn against Klaus? He doesn’t believe in global warming. In fact, he has gone out of his way to denounce the phenomenon, having once stated that “Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so.”

Klaus doesn’t stop there with his dissent. A Eurosceptic, Klaus has likened the EU to the former Soviet Bloc. Klaus was an outspoken opponent of the Lisbon Treaty, stalling its passage despite overwhelming support from other EU members.

Fortunately for Czechs, their quirky president doesn’t wield much power. The Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, holds supreme executive power, and the bicameral Parliament has the ability to force Klaus to sign their legislation. Klaus was eventually forced to sign the Lisbon Treaty last fall. Ah, if only Bush had been so easily diverted!

Klaus’s unending dissidence will surely be a source of amusement for us this semester. In any case we can be sure that Klaus will oppose an otherwise rational political movement sometimes soon, according to Financial Times blogger Tony Barber, who assures us of Klaus’s dedication to dissent:

“Like a naughty child who leaves the fridge door open, kicks a football around the house, feeds the cat orange peel and questions every instruction he receives, Klaus just never gives up.”

Sarah Kolinovsky is a NYU junior studying journalism and history.