[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Red and Gray: Recalling democracy -- two surprising examples.***FACING CERTAIN RECALL, THE STATE'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE has turned to his Leftist allies on the high court and in the legislature to block the recall election itself.

All the boxes of voter petition signatures were challenged as invalid, and the Chief Executive issued directives to delay their counting. Strings are being pulled to circumvent the rules of law and the state constitution.

And all during the months this has been happening, the Leftist Chief Executive and his apparatchiks have spewed propaganda denouncing the recall effort as illegitimate and politically smearing the reputations of those leading it.

Despite the close resemblance, this state executive is not Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The state is not California, named by Spanish explorers for the land of fabled Queen Califia, ruler of a magical island filled with talking animals.

The state depicted instead was by Spanish explorers named "Little Venice," Venezuela, after the homes its native people had built on stilts above the waters around the oil-rich Lake Maracaibo basin.

The executive depicted is Hugo Chavez, the brutal Marxist thug President who keeps his friend dictator Fidel Castro afloat with Venezuelan oil exchanged for Cuban I.O.U.'s that everybody knows will never be paid.

Polling finds that in a recall election 69 percent of Venezuelans would vote against Chavez, an overwhelming repudiation similar to what polls say California voters would deliver to Gray Davis.

The response of both these Leftist rulers has been an attempt to postpone or prevent any such election, to stifle the democratic voice of the people.

Chavez and his Marxist government allies have prevented the counting of petition signatures, an estimated four million of which remain locked away in 64 boxes in four-foot-high stacks.***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Uribe: Colombian leader has strong grip *** BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - In the year since he has taken office, President Álvaro Uribe has come to mean many things to the Colombian people: Commander in chief, poncho-clad populist, yoga enthusiast. But mostly, observers say, he has gained stature as the strong leader many feel this nation has lacked for decades. Under President Uribe's tenure, the violence and instability that have disrupted Colombian life over years of civil war have diminished. And that has left Colombians feeling more secure - even hopeful.

"In his first year of government, he has not only shown a seriousness of purpose and a capacity for work without precedent, but he has also given rebirth to hope in a country whose morale was at rock bottom," noted an editorial last Sunday in El Tiempo, Colombia's most prominent newspaper

According to the Defense Ministry, kidnapping has decreased by a third since Uribe took power a year ago Thursday. Terrorist attacks targeting population centers are down 78 percent it reports, and murders have declined by 16 percent. In a country that has seen 39-years of brutal civil war between leftist guerrillas and rightist paramilitaries fueled by drug money, that is welcome news.***