Red Ken and Redder Hugo

Hugo Chavez paying for the heating oil of the poor in South Bronx Joe Kennedy shilling for him and now he’s underwriting the bus passes of poor Londoners with Red Ken playing backup. The Wall Street Journal’s Review and Outlook piece today entitled “Brits on Venezuelan Dole“;

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has found a British business partner in the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. Mr. Chávez is doling out $32 million, which is supposed to allow a 50% cut in bus fares for low-income Londoners. In return, Transport for London will go to Caracas to tutor locals on fixing traffic jams.

Of course the Journal’s editors point out that Britain’s per capita GDP is $31,000 compared to venezuela’s $6000, but they stop short of pointing out that simple agricultural products are missing from the shelves of Caracas’ markets – things like milk, eggs and rice.

But Red Ken and Redder Hugo have cut a completely useless deal – purely for the sake of making themselves look better than they really are. And of course, who’s fault is it that poor Londoners need someone to supplement their bus fares (someone aside from Red Ken, their mayor)? I’ll give two guesses;

“Frankly, I’d rather be getting into bed with [Mr. Chávez] than, as the British government has been, getting into bed with George W. Bush.”

Any excuse, I guess. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Congress has given Chavez initial approval for his reforms – no big surprise there, huh?

After about six hours of debate, National Assembly president Cilia Flores said Mr. Chávez’s proposed changes to the constitution, including the lifting of presidential term limits, received “majority approval.” Ms. Flores did not say how many of the 167 lawmakers voted in favor of the reforms, saying only that they were approved with overwhelming support. Final approval is expected within two or three months, and the changes would have to be approved by voters in a referendum. The National Assembly has been solidly pro-Chávez since the opposition boycotted a 2005 vote and had been expected to sign off on the changes proposed by Mr. Chávez in Tuesday’s first reading. The reforms, if approved, would extend presidential terms from six to seven years and allow Mr. Chávez to run again in 2013.

So where are the US Democrats on Chavez and his Constitutional reforms? So far, Chavez has acted exactly like the Bush caracature the Democrats used to threatened voters in the last two presidential elections. It would seem to me that if the “human rights” Democrats were truly all about human rights, they’d be up in arms about a self-proclaimed adversary stealing rights from his people, without a peep from the legislature almost on a daily basis. I’ll tell you why they don’t have anything to say about it – because Chavez is doing exactly what US Democrats want to do. They want to shut down the broadcast opposition, they want to rule by decree, they want to rewrite the Constitution in their favor. They don’t oppose Chavez, they envy him. And maybe they’ll even move the clocks ahead 1/2 hour like Chavez wants according to the New York Times;

Moved by claims that it will help the metabolism and productivity of his fellow citizens, President Hugo Chávez said clocks would be moved forward by half an hour at the start of 2008. He announced the change on his Sunday television program, accompanied by his highest-ranking science adviser, Héctor Navarro, the minister of science and technology. “This is about the metabolic effect, where the human brain is conditioned by sunlight,” Mr. Navarro said in comments reported by Venezuela’s official news agency. Mr. Chávez said he was “certain” that the time change, which would be accompanied by a move to a six-hour workday, would be accepted.

He sounds more like the new revolutionary leader of Woody Allen’s movie “Bananas” as quoted by Sweetness and Light.

Category: Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, Politics