BoRev.Net

See, it’s not just me hyping the Book Wars. The whole meme gets hotter than a Hart Senate Building bathroom stall this week (5th foor, tap tap tap) as both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal square them off in their respective Labor Day weekend books sections.

On the cover of the Post’s book section this week, Veno-American socialite Alexandra Starr hedges her bets. Starr, known mainly for her freelance dispatches from Caracas’ finer malls, believes that Both Books Are Gr8!!! except that one is kinda outdated and stupid while the other one doesn’t talk about Chavez’s sex life enough. Hey, it is Larry Craig week after all, tap tap tap.

The Journal piece is a really fun read though. In a sign of things to come under the régime Murdoque, they unleash the full force of crazy lady Mary Anastasia O’Grady as a “reviewer.” The fact that O’Grady’s bizarre anti-Venezuela screeds in the Journal are actually a topic in Bart Jones’ book apparently isn’t an issue for the editors, and neither is the fact that she uses her review as a platform to yell at Jones for talking mean about her in his book. All’s fair (and balanced!) in love and Book War.

A Hartford Courant column lays out an argument for dropping this whole War on Terror idea and shifting gears:

“…the intense focus on Iraq and international terrorism has distracted American leaders from a rising ideological challenge mounted by Hugo Chavez and his allies in Latin America.”

Some people would have just had a nice state dinner or something, but Hugo Chavez likes to do things big. As he gets ready to broker a peace treaty between Colombia’s warring factions, he made an offering of his own yesterday, “release[ing] 27 Colombians who were imprisoned for plotting a failed coup against president Hugo Chavez.” Which poses the obvious question: WTF?

In further evidence that Venezuelan politics are crazy as shit, we travel back in time to look at exactly what this plot was about:

>>> Picture it: May, 2004, just two months before Chavez won the recall referendum, and two years after Venezuelans overturned the other, better known, coup attempt, intelligence services raid a farm outside Caracas and arrest 55 Colombian paramilitaries performing training exercises.

>>> Interrogation of the Colombians uncovers that “the exercise was aimed at overthrowing his government by seizing the national palace and nearby military barracks, while, if need be, assassinating the president.”

>>> One Colombian appears on TV news, claiming he was a laborer who had been offered work on the farm. But: “"Eight days after we arrived, they told us that we could not escape, that we cannot give information to anybody, and that we could not see or talk to any civilians, otherwise they would kill our families.” Some were released right away, while others went on trial for insurrection.

>>> The farm, naturally, is owned by Cuban-Venezuelan terrorist Robert Alonso, brother of The Venezuelan Charo™ Maria Conchita Alonso. Robert Alonso flees the country and lives, of course, in Miami.

>>> Maria Conchita says her brother is a hero. “"I believe he's done everything right, which is to fight for the Venezuelan people to know the truth of who Hugo Chavez is.”

Now please look at my cooter, she adds.

Writing for the Guardian Online, Calvin Tucker serves up the psychos in the UK’s Venezuelan expat community and their inevitable links to the right wingers in government.

As you know, U.S. news outlets have been praying for reporting on Venezuela’s just-around-the-corner financial collapse ever since Hugo Chavez rolled into office eight years ago now. Yet that willful, defiant, anti-American economy simply refuses to cooperate.

While lesser wire services might wuss out in the face of such resistance, the red blooded patriots over at Bloomberg News know that one mighty surge of ridiculously one-sided reporting might just tip the scales in our favor. And so: this. Bring it on, Beeeyach!

Problem is, this type propaganda front might be sparking rifts with our natural allies in the region. In a development that Nobody Could Have Foreseen™, it turns out that financial analysts actually rely on objective reporting from the region to do their jobs, and now, they’re sort of pissed. This analysis from the RGE Monitor had us at hello when it got all snarky talking about the Bloomberg “commentators …..oops sorry reporters.”
But then it gets good:

>>> Apparently, when you line up a bunch of critics with an agenda without any balance, “it all seems a little lop-sided;” And:

>>> Bloomberg’s discussions of inflation are missing crucial context, and reports of food shortages are… just bogus; And:

>>> “My conclusion is a simple request to the newswires: When it comes to Venezuela, more facts, more balance and less spin. Please.”

Update: In case you’re too lazy to read the whole thing yourself, I want to pull out one more paragraph, because it’s awesome:

On September 1st 2007, Bloomberg reported the latest macroeconomic figures from Peru and Venezuela. Under the happy headline “Peru Inflation Slows in August as Bus Fares, Fuel Prices Drop”, Lima correspondent Alex Emery noted Peru’s month on month rate rose and the year-on-year rate dropped. Meanwhile, under the worrying headline “Venezuelan Inflation Accelerates on State Spending” Caracas correspondents Theresa Bradley and Steve Bodzin noted Venezuela’s month on month rate rose and the year-on-year rate dropped”

Well the long weekend is over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still distract yourself. The Washington Post is hosting an online chat with Bart Jones, the author of Hugo: The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution at 3 p.m. ET today. Click here to submit comments in advance or to join in live.

Update: It's over, but you can read the transcript here.

Quote of the Day:

"That is the greatest half-truth ever told. If the man has nothing to fish with, nor a place to fish, all the knowledge in the world will not produce the next day's catch."

You can listen to it here. But really, you aren’t going to get much more than what I’ve already posted. But nobody’s stopping you. Whatever.

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s apparently now ok to say anything about Venezuela. Truth, rumor, just-sorta-made-up-shit. Nobody’ll check. From Human Events:

"[Code Pink Founder Medea] Benjamin touted Chavez’ policies and stated that 'George Bush -- and John Kerry for that matter -- could learn a thing or two from Hugo Chavez about winning the hearts and minds of the people.' She failed to mention on her blog that these policies include the slaughter of landowners and farmers, government seizure of private companies, a fraudulent election and the forced redistribution of wealth. Apparently, killing innocents in the name of communism is acceptable to some anti-war activists."

Well, here’s a new angle in the propaganda wars we'd never considered before: the leading California daily reports today that, um, Satanism is on the rise in Venezuela. Satanism. And naturally Chavez is maybe sort of probably behind it. And graves are being robbed to support his opposition to our way of life.

An actual sentence from the reporter: “[Chavez] is known to be a mystic of sorts, and some say that he believes he is the reincarnation of a 19th century Venezuelan leader, Ezequiel Zamora."

An actual paraphrase from a Catholic priest: "the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez is encouraging the rise of Santeria to counter the authority of the Catholic Church, which Chavez has viewed as his enemy"

An actual quote, about grave robbery, from a widow, "It wasn't this way before, when there was another president."

An actual attempt at a dissenting opinion: "Without offering hard evidence, De Fleury and some church officials blame the growing presence of Santeria on Cuba." Cuba! Of course!

The actual headline: “Not even the dead are safe in Caracas.”

Sorry dude. From Today’s State Department briefing with spokesman Tom Casey:

QUESTION: Another subject. The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is acting as a mediator in the hostages' situation with Colombia and Peru. Do you think it can be helpful, especially since there are some American citizens among the hostages?

MR. CASEY: I'm not aware of what role he or anyone else might or might not be playing in this. We continue to be concerned certainly about the three Americans who remain captive by the FARC. We continue to hold the FARC responsible for the conditions that they are held in as well as responsible for their safety. We want to see them released unharmed and released immediately. We continue to work with the Colombian Government on this issue. That is certainly the focus of our attention in terms of trying to have these people be released.

Holy Crap! The U.S. and Australia just joined OPEC! This'll surely be the end of the road for Venezuela.

Oh wait, they didn't. Our president is just a bigger moron than usual today.

It’s heartwarming to see that cheating on your wife can still lead to true love in today’s mixed up world. Longtime BoRev readers will remember that leathery Congresswoman and celebrity widow Mary Bono has been straddling Connie Mack’s “family values platform” for the last two years. One divorce, three anti-Venezuela resolutions and apparently 300 trips to the tanning salon later, these poster children for inherited seats and personal infidelity are tying the knot. Congratulations you crazy kids!

It’s his second marriage and her eighth or something. No word yet on whether she’ll take his fake last name, although insiders tell us she may walk down aisle all dressed in black, black, black, and honeymoon plans include blowing up Cuba!

Writing for Spain’s El Mundo, columnist Luis Maria Anson wants you to know that he’s totally not being homophobic at all when he starts the rumor that Hugo Chavez is maybe probably a big ol’ gay homosexual. [Sorry, the link is Spanish-only]

For those of you keeping score at home, that would make the president a buttfucking baby-killing devil worshiper, according to this week’s press roundup.

Send your BoRev photos to BoRevNet (at) gmail (dot) com

Remember when Americans were quaintly naïve about foreign lands? When temptation to travel “abroad” was quickly tempered by the knowledge that foreign customs might make us a bit uncomfortable, that exotic food might give us gas, and that those alluring vices might just lead us away from our personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Back when we took some slightly-smug comfort in the fact that there probably wasn’t anything that ol’ Pay-Ree’s got that you can’t find right here in Millsboro, at least nothing that's worth seeing, anyway?

Well let’s relive those happy days of ignorance and pre-9/11 fear for a change, shall we, as a small town fattie and his mildly retarded local newspaper warn us of the dangers of travel in Socialist Ecuador.

>>> It opens: “Seeking to have a nice vacation, Bethlehem Center High School teacher Ray VanSickle departed for South America to visit friends. Rather than an enjoyable, stress-free time, VanSickle said he was surprised to experience communism and anti-American behavior instead.”

>>> Dude was hounded by “several store clerks and police officers, which all warned him about the danger he was in while walking the streets alone,” and of course, “The United States Embassy in Quito advised VanSickle to keep a low profile.” Jesus, is this town haunted or something? A serial killer on the loose?

>>> Nope, it’s just that (hunky) President Rafael Correa “was said to be a close friend of Hugo Chavez, the current president of Venezuela, and shared his close relationship with the drug cartel of Colombia.” Yeah, Hugo and “the drug cartel of Colombia” are real tight.

>>> “VanSickle said he did not take any public transportation during his visit and he did not walk around by himself once he had heard the risk involved.” That must have been disappointing. Ray looks like a big “walker.”

>>> “VanSickle also traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he said he was safe from Ecuadorian threats against Americans.” Seriously…

>>> “VanSickle said that because the government plans to close the national park at the popular Galapagos Islands, he wished to visit there one more time.” WTF? Was he drunk when he gave this interview or just making shit up?

>>> He feels real bad for the Ecuadorians because “everything is messed up because the government is corrupt," and "Any money they were gaining from tourism will stop coming in because the government does not want to keep the national park open.” Yeah, he must have been drunk. Love how the reporter just kind of neglects to fact check any of this.

>>> In conclusion, “his thoughts continue to be with his friends who are faced with the drug cartel, a poor economic system, and now communism as well.” THE END!

La novia de Venezuela has a blog of her own. Eva Golinger’s lookin’ fierce in red. Check it out.

Hey remember all those lead toys and art stuff from China that was going to kill off America’s youth a couple weeks ago? They’ve been approved for shipment to Venezuelan kids now instead. Who says the Bush administration is incapable of long-term strategy?

Hat Tip: Domingo.

Haha! You want to hear something clever and funny? Columnist Andres Oppenheimer described Hugo Chavez as a “narcissist-Leninist” today! Get it? It’s an amusing wordplay that sounds sort of like “Marxist-Leninist,” but also it implies that Chavez stares at his reflection in a pool, too! Funny, right? No? Oh, perhaps you’ve heard it before. Like when Oppenheimer used it three days earlier in his column?

Or two weeks before that? Or one week before that? Or those two times in July? Or those three times in June? Or any of those 40 other times he’s used the same phrase in the same column in the past 10 months?

What’s that you say? You don’t know from this ‘narcissist-Leninist’ crap but your know ‘lazy ass writing’ when you see it? Hmm. You may have a point there.

So yesterday was a solemn day of remembrance, you may have heard. Can you believe it’s been thirty-four years since President Salvador Allende was assassinated? Where were you on 9/11/73?

Ok, so wasn’t our September Eleventh, but all told, the Chileans lost about 3,000 people too. Oh, and “democracy.” One notable difference is that this one was carried out less by Saudi extremists and more by Nixon appointees.

Anyway, Allende’s grandson was in Caracas yesterday to commemorate the anniversary, and Venezuelanalysis has translated his speech into English so that you might Never Forget.

Wow Eva’s blog is really totally kicking our butt in the “informing the readers” department. In the last two days we’ve learned:

>>> Which Venezuelan fake-NGOs are being funded by your tax dollars this year,
>>> WTF a U.S. nuclear submarine is doing off the coast, and
>>> Where to get your clit pierced in Caracas.

* Miami Herald columnist is all worked up over presidential candidates refusing to call Chavez a dictator.

* The Washington Times would like you to get worked up over a Venezuelan satellite that could possibly be used “against the United States,” like, if the U.S. attacks.

* Time Magazine is already worked up over having to book its Venezuelan flights in advance

* Reuters works itself up over Venezuelans and other hostiles purchasing ‘merican grains.

* Hotsy-totsy Ecuadorian president is up, and working.

Ok, we all had our little fun (and then some) mocking Venezuela’s brief flirtation with regulating humiliating names for children the way notable commie autocracies like Germany, Denmark and Mexico do.

The whole story had been such a win-win for the U.S. press, who got to make fun of the ding-dong-y barrio bumpkins who burdened their kids with names like Superman, Tutankamen, or Backstreetboi while wagging their Fingers of Freedom™ at the Iron Grip® of the VenGov for thinking to regulate the ding-dongery of the bumpkins. Anyway, it’s over, bitches. Superman won.

For the third year in a row, the U.S. State Department has named Venezuela one of the world’s two least cooperative countries in the War on Drugs, alongside Myanmar (Myanmar!). Everyone knows, of course, that like everything else the Bush Administration says these days, the designation is just more eye-rollingly politicized jive-turkery. Here’s what the Drug War Chronicle had to say about it last year:

“…the attack on Venezuela, which is neither a major drug producing country nor unusual in the region in being used as a transshipment point for Colombian cocaine, appears to have little to do with its adherence to US drug policy goals and much to do with the increasingly adversarial relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush administration.”

And of course, Condoleezza will once again waive the sanctions the law requires for insubordinate nations, mostly because U.S. “aid” to Venezuela is comprised of funds earmarked for the overthrow of its government, roughly $6 million dollars for FY2007. Hooray, us!

Sometimes when “statesmen” get too “elder” they start forgetting to lie. BTW Alan Greenspan’s got a book! And he’s “saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Just something to think about when we invade Venezuela for the democracy.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with it” is the new “I have a black friend.” So when we linked last week to a right-wing Spanish newspaper demanding that Hugo Chavez come out of the closet, you know, for gay rights, the whole Hey Faggot subtext just oozed off the screen like…you know. Anyway the link was in Spanish, but El Blabbeador has translated the piece for your ridiculing pleasure.

Venezuelans take the whole jiggle pageant thing to ridiculous levels of seriousness, so I guess it’s not surprising that some moron jumped the stage and ran off with a crown to “bring honor” to his home state, the opposition stronghold of Zulia. What’s weird is that he went straight for a runner-up crown. Fucking Zulia, the state where the stark raving mad beauty queen fanboys have an inferiority complex.

Hat Tip: VivirLatino

As we reported yesterday, Alan Greenspan raised some eyebrows when he acknowledged that the whole Iraq war might possibly have had something to do with that petroleum they’ve got over there. (I know, what next, right? The Civil War was really about something other than competing economic models and a nuanced-if-unfortunate disagreement over the appropriate implementation of a federal system?)

Anyway, G-Span knows that such a shocking concept requires further explanation, so he’s clarified himself in a Wall Street Journal interview today. To summarize:

>>> Saying the Iraq War was about oil was not meant as a criticism. Taking Saddam out was “very important to us,” what with us wanting the oil; and

>>> Hugo Chavez is “very much similar to” Saddam what with Venezuela having the oil and acting all independent and therefore being “very dangerous to us”; and

>>> Nothing personal. We're America.. This is what we do.

Nervous yet, Norway? Just kidding! You’re white.

Update: Yikes. It wasn't just me reading between the maniacal lines. Writing for Portfolio.com, Felix Salmon sez that G-Span was "implying that the US should attempt regime change in Venezuela."

Check it out: Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing “their best economic performances in decades,” and all it took was carefully studying the fuck-the-poor Washington Consensus economic policies and doing not that. Moises Naim and Ricardo Haussmann must be spinning in their executive black leather swivel chairs. Of course, they’ll still be called in to “analyze” it all in the press, because the world is stupid like that.

We all know how hard it can be to come up with a really boffo comparison, but many people do it every day, no matter how inaccurate, condescending or otherwise tortured it may be. These horrendous homologies are part of what makes this country great, and here are three of today’s funniest:

*** The Moderate Voice says Hugo Chavez governs like salami and if you put the salami together rather than just looking at the slices what you see is Pol Pot except without the actual killing fields (At least, “none that we know of”).

*** Alan Greenspan says that Chavez’s economic policies are just like Robert Mugabe’s, only in a hypothetical Zimbabwe experiencing the highest, fastest, and most consistent growth in its history.

*** The New York Times says Evo Morales is like a little knobby-kneed brown guy and it’s so cute that he runs a country!!!

You know the humorous thing about this scary police-state taser thing at the University of Florida? Kid comes from Weston, Or Westonzuela, as the Florida LatAm glitterati call it, for all of its elite-of-the-elite Venezuela transplants who fled a government that has never actually tased anybody for their political statements. Fucking Florida.

Teodoro Petkoff is the most frequently quoted Venezuelan opposition leader in the English language press. He is also quite the dickhead, as it turns out. Oil Wars has the scoop.

The American Security Council Foundation would like us to invade Venezuela right now please, and they are promoting their point of view with this hilarious/scary video. It’s sort of like Colin Powell’s presentation before the United Nations, only with cold war platitudes instead of faked information. Awesomely, the major argument seems to be a video clip of that George Bush fellow on how you are either with us or with the terrorists.

This summer, Venezuela’s opposition parties scored a bit of a public relations “coup” (heh heh) with a pretty ingenious strategy: set up fake—oops—"spontaneous" student movements, and make their centerpiece issue something that everyone cares about, like say “Free Speech.” Point, them.

But of course it’s the Venezuelan opposition so they are going to fuck up any advantage they’d gained in a dark yet amusing way. This week they’ve shifted their messaging a little tiny bit away from “a free and unrestricted press” and a little tiny bit toward “violently attack the crap out of newspapers that report on scandals involving opposition political leaders and demand that they be shut down forever and ever.” Point, um, nobody. Sigh.

Let’s hear it for taboo-busting Miami Herald reporter Steven Dudley! In his never-ending quest to get the full story behind this Hugo Chavez person, Dudley literally blows away old fashioned newspapery ideals like “journalistic standards,” “professional ethics,” and even the once-inviolate “laff test.”

Awesomely, Dudley doesn’t limit his iconoclasm to his own profession. He’s brought in a posse of shrinks, analysts and, uh, writers, to medically diagnose the mental state of the Venezuelan president. Among the totally accurate and not at all propagandizing professionals, we encounter:

>>> A CIA-trained “political psychologist” whose medical opinion is that Chavez “is capable of seeking nuclear weapons.” Doctor brainy recommends “that attention be continuously focused on Chávez and Venezuela as a possible source of terrorist organizational support;”

>>> A tabloid writer who might have interviewed the president’s personal psychiatrist and former girlfriend and found that the president “is bipolar and takes Prozac.” Of course the ex-lover says its “a lie” and the shrink wouldn’t return Dudley’s calls;

>>> A survey of 16 Venezuelan psychologists who have observed Chavez “from a distance,” in which many claim Chavez exhibits “antisocial and psychopathic behavior” based on their professional analysis of “long-circulating rumors;”

It turns out that many Venezuelans really really like their president, while others do not. And he once called President Bush “El Diablo” right there at the United Nations, had you heard that? Also he tends to be chatty, and he cares about poor people and probably deep down just wants to be loved. And he can drive.

AP reporter Ian James has waited years and years for his big shot at interviewing Hugo Chavez and this week he got to spend an entire day with the guy gathering all kinds of insight and anecdotes and revelations. So why is most of this so freaking boring?

Many Americans read the newspaper every day, just not very well. In lots of communities, the Letters to the Editor page is a veritable Who’s Who of our most embarrassing compatriots. Take Mr. Larry Neushotz from Bonita Springs, Florida, for example, who is quite concerned about local cops buying gas at Citgo. This is problematic because “If Chavez and the Muslims have their way, our grandchildren may be wearing muumuus, and living in caves.” (click here and scroll down for the whole thing)

Ok the muumuus are actually a nice touch, which sets Mr. Neushotz ahead of the pack, and makes him our first ever Awesomely Bad LTE of the week. And you can join in the fun! If you see anything vaguely relevant and ridiculously inaccurate/hyperbolic/just plain dumb, pass on the goods to BoRevNet (at) Gmail (dot) Com.

Evo’s on Stewart tomorrow.

BTW: Be sure to make a mental note this part of the Reuters write up: they explain that Bolivia has accused the Bush admin of funneling money to opposition, and plans to accept a visit by crazy ass Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later this month. Ok fine. But then:

Still, the United States decided earlier this month not to include Bolivia, the world's third-largest cocaine producer, on its list of countries singled out for economic sanctions for failing to meet their counter-narcotics commitments.

So yesterday when Reuters published the dubiously newsworthy story “Chavez Rails at Teen Breast Implants Gift Fad” we didn’t post on it because, really, what kind of creep is actually in favor children surgically altering their bodies to make themselves sexually appealing to adults, right? But then today Jezebel.com posted on it, and their comments section was funny:

>>> “Wait, he's against bigger breasts? Forget it, I'm not voting for him again”

>>> “See, now he's REALLY messing with the fabric of Venezuelan society...”

>>> “He's also against crotchless panties, which is why he must be defeated, that neo-Marxist scum.”

>>> “This guy is such an idiot. He totally reminds me of my Dad!”

>>> “Yeah, breast implants are for the 16th birthday. Turning 15 is traditionally celebrated with the ritual giving of ‘trashy hooker clothes,’”

There is this website, PetroleumWorld, which more often than not is filled with uninteresting, poorly written right-wing screeds. But periodically they brighten our day with an Editorial Commentary™ by “former Washington government employee” Scott Sullivan, who specializes in hysterically incomprehensible right-wing screeds, and I remember why I bookmark it in the first place.

Anyway today it’s all about how Bush is a traitor because he’s not right wing enough and Chavez is a nazi because he’s so leftist and then something about Turkey and the PKK and the “Barzani-Ahmadinejad-Hunt Axis” and it makes me grateful that he gets to share his genius with the world instead of keeping it locked away in his “former Washington government job.”

Just to keep the Spanish press buzzin’, Hugo Chavez invited Hollywood’s gayest gay guy to the palace yesterday.

And what's with the little black Bolivar growing out of Spacey's shoulder?

Somebody leaked Bush’s UN speech to the press, filled with all kinds of monkey-boy phonetic aides. Kah-RAH-kus indeed.

Remember this video from our Get Yer War On friends at the American Security Council Foundation? It says that Venezuela is probably a terrorist state because…well there was no “because.”

Anyway they “presented it to Congress” yesterday, and by that we mean “they showed it to the three members of Congress who bothered to show up.” (That would be event sponsors/Florida crazies Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Connie Mack, natch, plus Jerry Weller, who is betrothed to the spawn of Central America’s most brutal mass murderer). Oh and the only two state Department officials actually dismissed by the Bush Administration for being too crazy extremist were there too. Don’t you wish you’d been there? Haha. It was open to “Members and Staff only.” Fortunately, Members and Staff like to take notes and send them our way.

Join us for the lowlites, after the jump…

Here’s the Big E on last night’s Daily Show. He was a mild mannered rock star. Just listen to the audience --the revolution is a’coming, and apparently we’ve got Comedy Central to thank for it.

Holy crap! There are accusations of corruption within Venezuela’s state oil company! As the New Statesman helpfully explains, there have, of course, always been accusations of corruption at PDVSA only before Chavez nobody seemed to give a shit.

Whether you’re nursing your hangover or getting drunk all over again, do it with Bart Jones! He’s going to be on C-Span’s Book TV on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. and then again in the middle of the night (1 a.m.) and then again at 7 a.m. on Monday. It’s all very confusing but here is the schedule.

Yesterday we wrote about the American Security Council Foundation’s big fat Congressional fear-off with videos and douchy congresspeople and Otto Reich, remember? And how at the subsequent press conference, there was only one “journalist” who asked a question? Well, Erica Anderson finally wrote her story!! It’s in Human Events, so it competes for space with great works by people like Ann Coulter and Monica Crowly and—holy mac—Casper Weinberger Jr., not to mention Anderson’s own recent opuses like “Why Bill O’Reilly is Not a Racist and the Negroes Should STFU.” But that shouldn’t detract from its sublime awesomeness. Observe:

>>> Anderson mixes up the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez with the 2004 recall referendum, talking about some “petition” of people who signed for the president’s violent overthrow or something;

>>> She offers the VenGov’s rebuttal of the film’s accusations as “proof” of its “control over media communication;” and

>>> About three quarters of the way down, she quotes from the “film trailer,” meaning she didn’t actually watch the film itself. The one that her article is about. Nice one.

The humility. The wisdom. The sweaters. If you liked Evo’s appearance on the Daily Show, you’ll love his forty-nine minute radio extravaganza.

Ecuador's hunky president bailed on Bush’s U.N. dinner after hearing his speech:

"I did not go to the dinner. I was going to go, but I suspended (my attendance) in protest against the barbarities in his speech. He does not have the right to have given such a base, retarded speech nowadays in the 21st century.”

Snark/off for just a sec. Writing for The Nation, NYU history professor Greg Grandin has written one of the most fascinating analyses of modern Venezuela that I’ve read in a long, long time, channeled through the lens of the president's economic inspiration: John Kenneth Galbraith. Here’s a sample:

As Latin America struggles to remedy the damage caused by two decades of failed free-market orthodoxy--which has produced dismal growth rates and widespread social turmoil and misery--politicians are rehabilitating key macroeconomic principles unthinkable a decade ago. Argentina, for example, has generated the region's most impressive growth by lowering
interest rates, maintaining a competitive currency exchange rate, enacting price controls to stem inflation and driving a hard bargain with international creditors, thus wiping out two-thirds of the country's external debt and freeing up state revenue for social
spending and investment.

Galbraith has attracted admirers in Latin America not just for his macroeconomics but for his critique of corporate monopolies. His belief that corporations are political instruments with the incentive and ability to corrupt democracy resonates today in a region where much of the economy is controlled by foreign firms and where corporate TV (which Galbraith believed had little to do with free speech and everything to do with manufacturing consumer demand) has become a bulwark of elite privilege. Galbraith's solution was to use the state to set up a system of what he called "countervailing power," enacting aggressive union protection, unemployment insurance, subsidies, welfare and minimum wage guarantees to counter monopolies and force a
more just distribution of national wealth.

Remember how the Bush Administration “decertified” Venezuela—whatever that means—for “failing to cooperate in the war on drugs”? And how Venezuela was all like, “look we would have cooperated if your drug agents weren’t the ones dealing half the drugs in Venezuela?” And the Bush Administration was like “bullshit you’re making that up”?

Well, heh heh. Earlier this week a plane went down in the Yucatan Peninsula, carrying 2.3 tons of cocaine of Colombia to the U.S. And it turned out to be “one of the planes chartered to the CIA for the renditioning of kidnapped prisoners.”

UPDATE: Apparently the coke belongs to Mexico's most notorious drug lord, natch, and like other former CIA planes turned drug transporters before it, the jet "underwent a series of rapid ownership transfers" in the weeks leading up to the crash. It's a Grade A CIA coke jet mystery I tell ya.

>>> The Washington Post thinks it’s so cute that Venezuelans want to make movies like we do.

>>> The Miami Herald thinks it’s fascinating that “half a dozen left-wing Latin American presidents” came up to New York with “agendas” and “ideas” like real world leaders.

>>> The Bush Administration thinks it’s adorable that Costa Ricans actually thought that they would let them “vote” on a trade agreement.