It'd be easy to think of this as high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment, not least of which because it's high comedy from the usual band of celebrity tyrant clowns who so fascinate our liberal foreign policy establishment:

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi called on Monday for a new global definition of terrorism. Meeting a day after the end of a summit of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms defining terrorism. Neither spoke publicly about the document, which rejects "attempts to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination" with terrorism, according to a Venezuelan government website.

Next up: a redefinition of "Holocaust" that excludes genocides where the murderers were merely seeking Lebensraum. Subtle these tools are not. Not that they have to be: we've now reached a point in global geopolitics where Chavez is the one urging his fellow cretins to help the President of the United States, ostensibly the leader of the free world. Explicitly:

Meanwhile, Stone's new buddy gushed about Barack Obama, short one Communist buddy since Van Jones departed in the dark of night over the weekend. Maybe the two can pal around and have a beer at the White House: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama..."I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice. "With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can't deny that Obama is different (from Bush). He's intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him."

In fairness, Chavez and Obama do have a few overlapping perspectives. It's not just big things like reinstalling Zelaya or engaging Iran. It's the little things, the everyday things, the things at the level of sensibility. Like their mutual vaguely reflexive need to trash former President Bush in front of international forums. Those are the kind of shared eccentricities that really bring two people together.

Not in the way that Chavez is being "brought together" with African countries in an "anti-imperial" alliance. Or the way he's being "brought together" with Iran to create what Costa Rica's former US ambassador calls "a menace to the Western Hemisphere." Or the way he's being "brought together" with Qaddafi to build up a new world order. Those are much more robust alliance, built on shared anti-Western interests.

But it's still kind of heartwarming.

References and previously after jump...