With all of the media attention focused these days on the menacing antics of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it’s easy to forget that – not so long ago – Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez was the foreign leader who gave the United States the most political heartburn.
For when he wasn’t talking about fomenting socialist revolutions to challenge American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, he was hurling personal insults at American presidents that made it seem as though he was begging for a fight, mano-a-mano.
Well, Chávez’s antics are being featured as breaking news again. He is probably dumbfounded, though, that the American media are raising all kinds of red alerts about his latest political power grab.
Not least because they virtually ignored his acquisition from Russia last year of 1,800 shoulder-fired missiles of the type, ironically enough, that Afghan fighters acquired from the U.S. to fend off Russian hegemony in the early 1980s. How’s that for geopolitical symmetry….
Anyway, they’re reporting – as a Christmas ambush – the fact that Chávez asked his rubber-stamp congress on Tuesday to grant him special powers to enact laws by decree – specifically to deal with national disasters.
The president will use the authorization to ensure fast-track approval of laws aimed at helping the nation recover from severe flooding and mudslides that left thousands homeless and in government shelters.
(Vice President Elias Jaua, The Washington Post, December 14, 2010)
Mind you, Chávez is only asking for the kind of executive power to declare and manage national disasters that U.S. presidents enjoy. Not to mention that he is only doing now what he has done repeatedly throughout his presidency.
In fact, I duly noted this when his political power grabs really were breaking news – as I did here:
I have no doubt that he will continue to flex the formidable powers he retains under the existing constitution to rule Venezuela like, well, a de facto dictator. And with another five years left on his term in office, it would be naïve to assume that this is the last we’ve heard of Chávez ‘s efforts to codify his socialist ideology and win popular support for his perennial presidency.
(Referendum defeat actually vindicates Chávez, The iPINIONS Journal, December 4, 2007)
And in one of many follow-ups here:
Accordingly, those who were dancing just over a year ago are probably in mourning today. Because, in a wholly predictable redo of his earlier defeat, Chávez won a resounding victory on Sunday on a referendum that will allow him now to serve as president for life.
(Viva Chávez, The iPINIONS Journal, February 17, 2009)
Viva Chávez indeed.
Related commentaries:
Referendum defeat…
Viva Chávez…
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