Not So Level Playing Field for Chavez

Posted on December 4, 2006 in Foreign Relations

The Venezuelan election is Big News thanks to el presidente’s anti-American views. Randy Paul who has been against him since Day One has posted a long list of reasons why we leftists should hate the man. Even though he has much improved healthcare and access to education for the country’s poor, Paul takes him down for not taking on the bigger issue of land reform. Without “real reform”, Paul contends, the Chavez phenomenon is nothing more than a “cult of personality”. (Like we don’t have that here?)

Excuse me, but hasn’t anyone on the left noticed that when a Latin American president pursues a policy of land reform he finds himself lying in a pool of his own blood? It seems to me that Paul, like the majority of the American press, has set hurdles that no sane holder of office in Latin America can make. What Paul seems to want is another martyr (oh, no, that’s not a cult of personality) rather than an effective pragmatist.

* * * * *

Randy faults Chavez for high gun violence and his failure to undertake land reform. I also get the impression that he likes the healthcare and education initiatives. Somewhere in Latin America, we can find a man who fits all four of these conditions that Randy has set. And his name is: FIDEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLL CASTRO!

Oh, but Randy doesn’t like him because he’s a dictator rather than a freely elected president like Chavez. You just can’t win when Randy’s the judge.