« The Haiti Precident | Main | A New Quota? »
August 30, 2005
Defender of Dictators
Ok, so maybe Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez isn't a complete dictator. He was elected, and probably will be reelected in 2006 when his time comes up. But he's still a pretty unsavory character, and is bad news for the region and his own country.
But if Chavez isn't quite a left-wing dictator, he's certainly trying to act like one. Consider Mark Falcoff's description of his "dialogues", from the August 29 edition of National Review (digital subscription required)
It’s Sunday in Venezuela, which means it’s time for President Hugo Chávez to go on radio and television to “dialogue” with his people. Dialogue is actually not the right word; except for this week’s special guests (Cuban dictator Fidel Castro by telephone from Havana, and later, Cuba’s health minister), Chávez does all the talking — endlessly, tediously, often jumping from topic to topic in no apparent order. This time it’s a full eight hours. The subjects include the evils of capitalism and “neo-liberalism,” the unspecified contribution Cuba can make to solving Venezuela’s energy problems, the nefarious George W. Bush, the dangers of a free-trade agreement with the United States (“a grinding stone to crush peoples”), the vast wave of support that Venezuela and its president now supposedly enjoy throughout the hemisphere and even the world . . .
So what does Jesse Jackson do? Run down to Venezuala to defend him, of course.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday urged President Bush to strongly condemn a U.S. religious broadcaster's call for the assassination of Venezuela's leftist president, saying Washington needs to cool down the rhetoric against this South American nation and major oil producer.The U.S. civil rights leader met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in private at the presidential palace yesterday, saying beforehand that he hoped to help ease tensions aggravated last week by Pat Robertson's suggestion that Mr. Chavez ought to be killed.
"We must make it clear that talk of isolating Venezuela, talk of assassinating its leader, this is unacceptable, and it must be denounced roundly by our president and by our secretary of state," Mr. Jackson said in an interview shortly before meeting with Mr. Chavez.
"The U.S. and Venezuelan leadership must have a detente on rhetoric. That exacerbates tensions," Mr. Jackson said. "We need to have a cooling down of divisive rhetoric."
There are so many things wrong here it's hard to know where to start.
There's the obvious aspect that I alluded to in my opening, in that Jackson shouldn't be defending someone like Chavez
But there's also the question of whether a president should criticize a private citizen for what he said. There are times when it may be necessary to do so, but it would take an extreme situation. Normally, presidents should leave the job of criticism to the private sector, to journalists, bloggers, and the like.
One can only believe that if President Bush criticized a non-politician liberal he would be in turn denounced for "putting a chill on the first amendment".
Posted by Tom at August 30, 2005 10:09 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/470
