Chávez's oil-fueled ego trip may be his own undoing

The Miami Herald ^ | Jan. 20, 2005 | Andres Oppenheimer

[Kitten Festival]

Despite new evidence that Venezuela has become a sort of ''Club Med'' for Latin America's violent groups, the Bush administration is unlikely to start its second term taking major steps to isolate leftist-populist President Hugo Chávez. But, eventually, it will probably do so.

Judging from what incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate earlier this week and what I have heard in interviews with well-placed current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. strategy will be to wait until Chávez does something really obnoxious in the eyes of the world, which he probably will.

[Kitten Festival]

Oh, mannnnnnnn, this essay is good! Read the whole thing, it's the best read of the day!!!!

[Enterprise]

Of course he'll do something stupid. He's a leftist. From there it's all downhill.

[Question_Assumptions]

The question is whether he'll only kill thousands or get into the millions of bodies before people pay attention to him. With leftist idealists, it's only a matter of time before they get in touch with their inner Stalin or Pol Pot.

[Enterprise]

I think we'll limit him to thousands.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

A friend of Kerry's, Harkin's, Dodd's. Birds of a feather...

[Question_Assumptions]

You mean Chris (Let's hand Cambodia over to the Khmer Rouge because it would be the best thing for them) Dodd? You'd think that any Democrat who voted to cut funding to Lon Nol's government and thought the Khmer Rouge were simply pleasant socialist agrarian reformers would have just gone off and crawled into a while to die out of shame this point. Aren't 2 million bodies enough blood on anyone's hands?

[Finalapproach29er]

Stealing private land this week isn't obnoxious enough?

[Sam Cree]

The Miami Herald occupies a slightly awkward position in that it is a leftist newspaper situated in a city with a dominant right wing Hispanic population.