Obama’s “Road to Hell” mistranslated, says Czech blogger [updated]

Reports in Google News and The New York Times that Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek described the ObamaMessiah’s “rescue” plan as a “road to hell,” in a speech to the Strasbourg parliament, are inaccurate, says Czech blogger and Free Radical writer Luboš Motl:

    If you're an open-minded reader who is actually interested in reality, you should know that Mr Topolánek probably didn't say that the policies were a "road to hell." I guess that at least in the private context, he may have said that the combination of the stimuli and the protectionist & "Buy American" policies (and their declared "permanency"!) repeat the mistakes of the 1930s and are a "road to the asshole" ("cesta do prdele") or "a way to the crapper" ("cesta do hajzlu"). And he's damn right! :-)
    This is what I could predict based on my extended linguistic knowledge of the prime minister's opinions and colorful vocabulary. :-) Incidentally, Barroso's EU Commission seems to agree with Topolánek. . .

Luboš has a video clip of the comments at his site (along with the “mistranslation”). He also puts into context the kerfuffle over the “no confidence” crisis in the Czech parliament that Obama friendly media are talking up.

    Today, the foreign media have written a lot about the "political crisis" in the Czech Republic. Well, there's no "crisis."
    The government just failed in a no-confidence vote which is a standard … situation described in the constitution. The constitution is being followed literally and [President Václav Klaus], seems pretty happy about the no-confidence vote. . .
    [Klaus]will accept Topolánek's resignation tomorrow and he will have the right and the pleasure to choose a new prime minister who will try to pass another confidence vote in the Parliament. That's a standard sequence of events that is not surprising in our political system in any sense. Also, it is completely unrelated to the current global economic havoc, despite loads of stupid or downright dishonest journalists who suggest otherwise . . .

And that’s the memo direct from the Czech Republic, without the deluded intermediary of the NY Times.

UPDATE:  Oops.  Says Luboš in clarification:

“No! I was joking about the slang language. That's what our PM uses in different contexts but in the EU speech, he surely said "hell". Sorry to disappoint you by his being very diplomatic and moderate in this case.”