Josh Marshall recently wrote in this post about the strange case of Mirek Topolanek, currently the EU president who recently described Obama's bailout plan as a road to hell.

This prompted TPM reader artappraiser to admonish Mr. Marshall in this post, and to make the assertion that Mr. Topolanek is in fact somehow speaking, if not for Europeans, then for European governments, who aren't so keen on throwing money at the global recession in a Keynesian fit of action.

Well that got alot of people talking, some of whom rightly pointed out that Europeans already throw public money at their economies even when they're doing fine, and others who seemed to agree in some way or another with artappraiser's basic premise, namely that Europe is alarmed at this spending and that Mr. Topolanek is a symptom of a broader attitude and not simply a spoiled boorish politician who lacks even the most basic sense of tact and finesse and who most Europeans wish would simply disappear.

Neither artappraiser nor Mr. Marshall are wrong in a way, but there is a piece missing to this puzzle, namely basic awareness of the political landscape over here. The Czech Republic is on the frontier between Western Europe and Eastern (i.e. former communist) Europe. Folks in Western Europe are really tired (that is to say, we've sort of had it) with bailing out folks in Eastern Europe. Economies like say Latvia, have already received billions of euros in EU aid and just keep coming back for more. Now this isn't like California bailing out Alabama. Most Western Europeans haven't the slightest feeling of solidarity with these countries and only see them as foreign powers who show up in Brussels hat in hand and run back home without even a thank you, nor a promise, much less a plan, as to how to account for the money. I doubt many Americans would take kindly bailout money being shipped to places like Panama or Equador, even if the economies needed it, and watching it disappear without so much as projection or balance sheet blown our way.

So, politicans like Topolanek, who are sitting in that strange no man's land between East and West, and who are eager to show strength and solidarity with Western Europe, are only too eager to show how averse they are to bailout plans (and it doesn't hurt to court a few right wing American politicians while you're at it). But Josh Marshall is not wrong to point out that the EU president has way outstepped his reach. Obama's plan is widely thought to be necessary in France and in Germany and Sarkozy and Merkel are both trying to pledge support to Obama (which is a popular move) and find some way to pump money into the European economy without enraging a population that is already hurting and watching tax dollars flow away to nebulous propped up governments (now Americans can certainly understand that kind of rage right now I think)...

Sound like a strange inverted AIG scenario to anyone? It is very much like that, and it's on a continental scale...