Of all the Czech politicians suddenly concerned over the urgent crisis of Americans, Canadians and Australians overstaying their tourist visits, Bublan alone seems to have maintained his calm. Perhaps that's because he's not running for re-election.

But give the man his due: He may have brought us the police farce known as CzechTek last summer — and has yet to admit that officers under his command used excessive force in beating up teenage partiers from across Europe who didn't have the correct permits for a rural Bohemian rave. But perhaps he's learned his lesson.

Bublan's rhetoric at the time — that techno-loving neo-hippies are probably spreading AIDS and terrorism in the Czech Republic — was laughable, of course. Yet now he alone is saying that Foreign Affairs Minister Cyril Svoboda's calls for a crackdown on foreign tourists is unworkable and unnecessary.

Svoboda, a prominent Christian Democrat, whipped out the xenophobia card, always good for votes in an election year, by issuing a standard scare tactic statement March 19. The Foreign Ministry has evidence of tourist rules being "massively violated," Svoboda announced.

The grave threat, it seems, is Western tourists — or at least, Svoboda pointedly says, those from countries where Czechs are still required to have visas. Especially when their citizens stay longer than the officially permitted 90 days that are allowed for visitors who need no Czech visa. The three countries singled out in this alert, the United States, Canada and Australia, fall in that favored category.

If Westerners want to continue spending their hard currency here after 90 days, they must go through the Byzantine Czech short-term visa system, involving background checks, getting nervous landlords to sign papers proving they own the apartments in which the applicant is living, and runs across the border to Czech embassies in Germany or Slovakia to file paperwork that takes three months to process at a minimum, sometimes longer.

This, the esteemed foreign affairs minister warns, is not nearly enough.

Now, says Svoboda, the border guards should start religiously stamping passports of visiting foreigners — a fair enough demand in itself. But the foreign minister also wants police to start checking foreigner's bank balances and insurance papers, something Bublan says is neither possible nor necessary.

Very possibly, Bublan's insights stem from his knowledge that his ministry would have to carry out Svoboda's grand idea.

But calls for stepping up inspections of foreigners' papers is nothing more than classic, old-time campaign hogwash — and something everyone knows won't accomplish a thing.