The finance minister has succumbed to the delusion that he is the state.

Last week, I invited readers to go through a list of behavioural traits common in psychopaths and consider how many of these traits were to be found in the behaviour of our finance minister, Miroslav Kalousek.

Of all the traits, perhaps the most important is a grandiose sense of self-worth. Observers of our finance minister will have noticed his habit of referring to himself in the third person in his own presence. ("Well, of course!", I hear you say: "How could he refer to himself in his own absence?! Are you mad?!". )

An example:

"The finance minister of this republic is almost convinced that he is fulfilling his constitutional duty. Miroslav Kalousek is outraged at the suggestion that he might be on the take.", declared Miroslav Kalousek to his looking glass this morning, before heading off to parliament to address an empty chamberpot, saying "the finance minister of this republic is almost convinced that he is fulfilling his constitutional duty. Miroslav Kalousek is outraged at the suggestion that he might be on the take and so on", before popping out to the pub for a liquid lunch.

If you watched his startling 'dry mouth' performance on OMV on Sunday, and if you have read his interview in HN this morning, you will find lots more evidence of his delusional mental state.

His statements in today's papers are either those of Aladdin the Dictator or, given the fact that he is a government minister of a democratic state, the words of a complete fruitcake. He said that, as the finance minister and the 'guarantor' of the way laws are interpreted, he will issue an interpretive guide to state organs, including state prosecutors, and will say, "In the name of the Republic, these paragraphs must be interpreted in the following way" ("Vydám výkladový sborník a poskytnu ho složkám státu včetně státního zastupitelství a řeknu: "Jménem republiky, ty paragrafy se musejí vykládat takto a takto.")

The man clearly believes, and no doubt acts, as if he is the law, which is dangerous. But what makes him sick is the fact that he clearly thinks it permissible to say so in a national newspaper (and to intimidate a senior police officer leading the CASA investigation.)

A 'guarantor' agrees to be responsible for another's debt or performance under a contract, if the other fails to pay or perform. We shall see how willing Kalousek is to take responsibility for what the Court of Auditors in Brussels calls, in a triumph of bureaucratic understatement, the “systematic adjustment” of reports on EU funding use in the Czech Republic prepared by his ministry. Will he accept responsibility for the dire consequences that would result if it shown that his colleagues in the finance ministry have been fiddling the books and up to forty percent of the EU funding already disbursed by the finance ministry is never reimbursed by Brussels? I think not.

It all reminds me of the conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" where they are discussing semantics and pragmatics.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master...that’s all.”

The question is, which is to be master, Miroslav Kalousek or the judicial system of this country?