You think the Thug-O-Crat (as Michelle Malkin calls him) is on the phone to Jimmy Carter this evening? “Jimmah, Jimmah….I need help, come down here and help me win this thing. By the way, can you pick up Sean at the airport?”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lost his lead eight
days before a referendum on ending his term limit, an independent
pollster said on Saturday, in a swing in voter sentiment against the
Cuba ally.Forty-nine percent of likely voters oppose Chavez’s proposed raft of
constitutional changes to expand his powers, compared with 39 percent
in favor, a survey by respected pollster Datanalisis showed.Just weeks ago, Chavez had a 10-point lead for his proposed changes
in the OPEC nation that must be approved in a referendum, the polling
company said.Despite the swing, company head Luis Vicente Leon said he did not rule out a comeback by the popular president.
Chavez has trounced the opposition at the polls on average once a
year and can deploy a huge state-backed machinery to get out the vote,
Leon said.Still, the survey was the latest blow to Chavez. He has suffered a
series of defections over his plan, including an ex-defense minister
who had restored him to power after a brief 2002 putsch but who called
Chavez’s reforms a new “coup.”
Alas, I think none of this matters. We’re not talking about a Democracy down there and Chavez will get the yes vote he wants by a large margin, just as Saddam did during his reign. His latest speech tells us that he will hold nothing back, even deeming his citizens “traitors” for not allowing him to become dictator:
President Hugo Chavez warned his supporters
on Friday that anyone voting against his proposed constitutional
changes would be a “traitor,” rallying his political base before a
referendum that would let him seek unlimited re-election in 2012 and
beyond.Brandishing a little red book listing his desired 69
revisions to Venezuela’s charter, Chavez exhorted his backers to
redouble their efforts toward a victorious “yes” vote in the Dec. 2
ballot.
“He who says he supports Chavez but votes ‘no’ is a
traitor, a true traitor,” the president told an arena packed with
red-clad supporters. “He’s against me, against the revolution and
against the people.”
And get this excellent vision of what a Socialist paradise looks like:
But this year, Chavez has hurt his standing by shutting an opposition TV station and failing to end some food shortages.
Amanda Aguilar, 17, was in line at 5:30 a.m. waiting for a food store to open to buy her single, rationed carton of milk.
Now WHO wouldn’t want to live like that huh?
What a paradise.
See author page
Chavez has already stacked the courts and the legislature and controls the police and major business and telecommunications. Anyone who insults him can be prosecuted under laws he has already passed.
None of that bothers the lefties that traipse down there for the photo op. To them Bush is Hitler!
Chavez will stuff the ballot boxes if he has to and there’s nothing anyone can or will do about it.
Meanwhile, the “news” media in this country will continue to run stories daily about how bad America’s ally Pakistani President Musharraf is.
Mike is right. PBS BSerina Margaret Warner spent five days last week on Turnip Truck Driver Jim Lehrer’s tax-payer subsidized American Pravda in Pakistan interviewing just about any and every opponent of Musharraf. Your tax dollars at work.
In the meantime, exactly zero coverage has been emitted from Venezuela critiquing strong-boy Hugo and his economic catastrophes—perhaps the brave newsies fear retaliation from either fat Hugo or their Bolshie colleagues in the American media?
A couple of economic refugees from Caracas talked to me last week as they looked for a home in Westonzuela in S. Broward Cty. Hugo has, in addition to wrecking the economy, turned Venezuela into the new crime center of Latin America, rudely wrenching that distinction away from Panama & Colombia & Mexico as money-launderers from Arg, Bol, Ecua, and elsewhere are setting up shop in Caracas and environs.
You can bet that “{referendum” if passed will be the final free vote the Venz will have—and Hugo’s crime-gangs are already working to subvert the balloting. I wonder if Jimmah will slither down their and give his benisons to the balloting, as he has done in other crooked ones, in Ethiopia just to name one off the top of my head.
[Jimmah’s reputation among honest NGO observers is as a simple-minded meddlesome dupe.]
I sometimes wonder if Dimmis actually know of people like Hugo’s actions, or they just don’t care. Stalin was a hero to a lot of people here, as was Hitler. Figuring what makes these people tick probably is impossible.
jainphx: Look at how the left totally ignores the perverse totalitarian brutality of Castro’s prisons for dissenters where REAL torture happens every day and focus instead on the incredibly begign treatment of terrorists at GITMO.
Their moral compass is warped to the point where good is bad and bad is good.
The only rule for them is that if a dictator hates the United States as much as they do, they don’t care if that dictator does the very same things they falsely accuse the U.S. of doing.
Two things come to mind with this quote.
1. Didn’t we see the end of this dreadful play with the demise of the USSR? I mean, the People of Venezuela used to have a thriving economy, but now it is destroyed.
2. This last Friday (Black Friday) saw American People of all stripes out at the wee hours waiting for stores to open, not a carton of milk!
EVERY socialist “utopia” always ends with “commoners” in a line waiting for bread, milk, toilet paper, etc. WHY does the American left want the USA reduced to THIS? Or does the leftist leaders plan to be the ones in “datchas” with storehouses full of “Party Only” goods?