Venezuela: Falling Down

In a mirrored office tower overlooking Caracas, a top Venezuelan official says his government is ready to accept Barack Obama’s offer to talk with U.S. adversaries -- if the president-elect scraps George W. Bush’s division of the world into friends and foes.

Such categories are “simplistic,” says Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s former envoy to Washington. “Why do nations have to be friends? What we have to do is sit down and discuss issues.”

Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.

Still, “Obama needs to be cautious” given Chavez’s inconsistent record on democracy, says Elsa Cardozo, an international-relations scholar at the Metropolitan University of Caracas. The 54-year-old former lieutenant colonel has allowed open elections and an opposition press while consolidating power over the government and selectively persecuting political rivals.

Doesn't the "inconsistent record on Democracy" just say it all? Hugo Chavez is doing all he can to convert Venezuela into the latest version of Cuba's Communist paradise. Watch the video, inadequately called "The Hugo Chavez Show" as if life is a show to be watched. Come to think of it, the dimwitted actor we hired makes that seem more real today than before.

Obviously the poor ignorant reporter thinks you are more ignorant than they, else who would believe such drivel.

This is just too rich to pass up. Venezuela is the 'boots to lick' of choice for the Democrat Socialists in Congress. Their template on how to take over a country. They flock down there every chance they get, not so much now as everything seems to be going to shit at the present. The free pies factory was supposed to be the oil dollars, but now that prices have crashed, well what you going to do now. Hey I got it, takeover the gold mines. Not much going on in Venezuela these days as the misery spreads throughout the country.

I think Obama wants tips on how to screw the USA, so it looks more like Venezuela, or Kenya.