Tuesday, June 07, 2005
My mom went to Ft. Lauderdale and all we got was this crappy little editorial
Maria Corina Machado’s kids must be feeling really let down today. They thought that over the past couple of days their mom would get to play the role of dragon slayer, cutting that dastardly Hugo Chavez down to size. She, along with her gringo friends was going to get a change in the in the OAS Charter to deal with “undemocratic” countries. I never could figure out exactly what they were going to put in the charter about this. Maybe a rule saying that any government that wins more than 3 elections in a row is undemocratic by not letting its opponents win once in a while?
Anyways, its an academic question at this point as the U.S. proposal went down in flames for lack of support. So much for that idea. This shows why the U.S. doesn’t like votes on international questions. It much prefers to have these questions decided based on who has the most aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. [There is a report, as yet unconfirmed, that in response to not being able to win any recent OAS votes the U.S. has decided to unilateraly change the OAS so that each STATE in the U.S. gets a vote – ie the U.S. as a whole gets 50 votes and always wins. Stay tuned for updates]
Of course going in it was a pretty much a forgone conclusion that the U.S. wasn’t going to get its way so that really didn’t upset anything. But at the very least they had been hoping for a two day anti-Chavez propoganda festival where they could tell the whole world about their new bogeyman and fill up the U.S. media with lots of anti-Chavez stories. Unfortunately for them they didn’t even get that. No sooner than the conference gets going than the president of Bolivia gets overthrown completely upstaging whatever boring stories on Venezuela’s “warts” may have been about to come out. Maria’s kids never did get to see their mom on TV cutting Chavez down to size.
Of course, not all was lost. The Wall Street Journal editorial page stayed on message and wrote the perfunctory anti-Chavez editorial – all four paragraphs of it neatly hidden in the crease. Clearly their heart wasn’t in it. For the most part they just trotted out the same old canards that they have been using to no effect for years now – “Chavez is an autocrat”, “he is destroying democracy”, “he controls all the institutions”, blah, blah, blah. And even when they did try something new they just looked foolish. For example, they said “Chavez is a living reminder of the old Latin saw, “one man, one vote, once.” Errr, guys, Chavez has one three votes at this point. But hey, who's counting. [PS, I think there are a lot of gringos who would LOVE to get “one man, one vote” even just once – they’ve never gotten it in their whole history - dammed electoral college]
They did put in what is their mantra on Venezeula at this point by calling last summers presidential referendum “stolen”. Of course, the international observers including the OAS said it was fine, but I guess they missed that. Of course, even the U.S. State Department accepted the results, but I guess they missed that. Of course, even the few rational souls (and even some of the non-rational ones too!) left in the Venezuelan opposition accept Chavez’s victory, but I guess they missed that. And we’re going on a year now and they haven’t found even one independent expert who agrees with any claims of fraud, but the WSJ hasn’t bothered to think about that.
So there you have it, the whole sad little spectacle. Pobrecitos, their mom went all the way to Ft. Lauderdale and all they got was one crappy little editorial. Hopefully she’ll make it up to them by taking them to Disney. In my experience, Mickey Mouse can cheer anybody up.
|
Anyways, its an academic question at this point as the U.S. proposal went down in flames for lack of support. So much for that idea. This shows why the U.S. doesn’t like votes on international questions. It much prefers to have these questions decided based on who has the most aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. [There is a report, as yet unconfirmed, that in response to not being able to win any recent OAS votes the U.S. has decided to unilateraly change the OAS so that each STATE in the U.S. gets a vote – ie the U.S. as a whole gets 50 votes and always wins. Stay tuned for updates]
Of course going in it was a pretty much a forgone conclusion that the U.S. wasn’t going to get its way so that really didn’t upset anything. But at the very least they had been hoping for a two day anti-Chavez propoganda festival where they could tell the whole world about their new bogeyman and fill up the U.S. media with lots of anti-Chavez stories. Unfortunately for them they didn’t even get that. No sooner than the conference gets going than the president of Bolivia gets overthrown completely upstaging whatever boring stories on Venezuela’s “warts” may have been about to come out. Maria’s kids never did get to see their mom on TV cutting Chavez down to size.
Of course, not all was lost. The Wall Street Journal editorial page stayed on message and wrote the perfunctory anti-Chavez editorial – all four paragraphs of it neatly hidden in the crease. Clearly their heart wasn’t in it. For the most part they just trotted out the same old canards that they have been using to no effect for years now – “Chavez is an autocrat”, “he is destroying democracy”, “he controls all the institutions”, blah, blah, blah. And even when they did try something new they just looked foolish. For example, they said “Chavez is a living reminder of the old Latin saw, “one man, one vote, once.” Errr, guys, Chavez has one three votes at this point. But hey, who's counting. [PS, I think there are a lot of gringos who would LOVE to get “one man, one vote” even just once – they’ve never gotten it in their whole history - dammed electoral college]
They did put in what is their mantra on Venezeula at this point by calling last summers presidential referendum “stolen”. Of course, the international observers including the OAS said it was fine, but I guess they missed that. Of course, even the U.S. State Department accepted the results, but I guess they missed that. Of course, even the few rational souls (and even some of the non-rational ones too!) left in the Venezuelan opposition accept Chavez’s victory, but I guess they missed that. And we’re going on a year now and they haven’t found even one independent expert who agrees with any claims of fraud, but the WSJ hasn’t bothered to think about that.
So there you have it, the whole sad little spectacle. Pobrecitos, their mom went all the way to Ft. Lauderdale and all they got was one crappy little editorial. Hopefully she’ll make it up to them by taking them to Disney. In my experience, Mickey Mouse can cheer anybody up.
|
