Some day – after Venezuela has become one of the two dozen rogues to go nuclear in a post-American world – this kind of stuff will seem a lot less funny. Ditto for Chavez’s obsession with his hugely popular Twitter stream, which he keeps trying to push on Castro and Morales and which may be managed by as many as 200 people, and with the blog he’s launching today.
But for now – can you believe that we’re losing to this clown:
Chavez says he recently was tailgated in the slow lane by a young man in a truck who unknowingly honked at the president and then passed him on the shoulder. But Chavez didn’t let it go at that. He says he chased down the vehicle — probably with the presidential motorcade in tow — and scolded the remorseful motorist. Chavez… said Sunday on his weekly broadcast show that “there’s madness on the highways”… [and] that reckless driving won’t be tolerated.
Chavez is rallying tens of thousands of armed youths around his cult of personality, he’s shutting down all of Venezuela’s opposition TV stations, and his lackeys are threatening to punish journalists for “media crimes. He actually stifled and expelled a human rights group after they accused him of trying to stifle criticism.
Meanwhile dozens of Venezuelan brokerage houses have been raided by Chavez’s thugs in recent weeks, apparently because Chavez ran out of luxury Hiltons that he could seize “in the public interest.”
On the plus side, the Obama administration is very pointedly – and very mutely – watching from the sidelines while Chavez continues to assemble his anti-American “Bolivarian” coalition. Venezuela has spent the last year or so seeking uranium with Iran’s help, part of what long ago was an obvious Tehran-Caracas nuclear axis. And the Venezuelan government stands officially accused by a Spanish judge of plotting with terrorists on two continents to murder South American leaders, part of Chavez’s gambit to achieve regional hegemony.
It’s hard to imagine that Washington would be so conspicuously passive without a really subtle grand strategy to outflank and marginalize Chavez. So pretty soon there should be nothing to worry about.
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References:
* Venezuela’s Chavez plays traffic cop, stops driver [AP]
* Chavez exhorts Fidel, Morales to Twitter [Reuters]
* Hugo Chavez Hires 200 People to Manage His Twitter Account [Mashable]
* Venezuela’s President Chavez Creates New Official Blog [Bloomberg]
* Chavez rallies armed youths to defend socialism [Reuters]
* Anti-Chavez TV Station Faces Possible Shutdown [ABC News]
* Venezuelan Journalists: Top Prosecutor Must Resign [ABC News]
* Hugo Chavez expels rights group, proves their point [FP Passport]
* Venezuela Raids Top Brokerage Econoinvest In Ongoing Crackdown [WSJ]
* Venezuelan Leader Seizes Luxury Resort [Luxist]
* Barack Obama and the fruits of weakness [Krauthammer]
* Venezuela Seeking Uranium With Iran’s Help
* The Tehran-Caracas Nuclear Axis [WSJ]
* Venezuela ‘helped Eta and Farc plot against Uribe’ [BBC]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Venezuela
* World News
* Stupid
