For those of you who may have missed the Chomsky appellation of Kerry as Bush-lite (while still saying to vote for Kerry) that's
here.
Actually I like Chavez of Venezuela and I would hope that our centrist "Cuba Expert" Armondo would back me up here and say there's very little comparison between Chavez and Castro. Chavez was elected for one and has a strong backing of the majority lower classes of Venezuela, maybe or not as strong as Castro's backing by his people. Of course, Castro has the fortune of his middle and upper-classes having moved to Miami. Chavez on the other hand is carefully avoiding having his middle and upper-class opponents arrested and charged with many illegal activites they are guilty of. His use of the legal system to invalidate the referendum petitions is much stronger than Bush's use of our legal system to get elected. So I think the case is pretty strong that Chavez is in no way a dictator, certainly no more than Bush.
So the Question? Is Kerry (Bush-lite) trying to earn that name, Bush-lite, by dissing Chavez? It appears that he is taking a much stronger stance vis-a-vis Chavez than required for vote getting purposes. We already know that he ducked the Haiti/Aristide issue and appears to have backpedaled on lifting sanctions on Cuba (which lifting even Armondo supports.)
But, you be the judge here.
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has attacked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a dubious democrat hostile to U.S. interests, delivering a slap in the face to the leftist leader who had portrayed Kerry as a potential friend.
The Kerry statement on his Web site made front-page news in Venezuela on Monday, nearly two weeks after Chavez had publicly praised the Democrat contender, hailing his health care plans and likening him to assassinated U.S. President John Kennedy.
Thanks to the
NarcoShpere for alerting me to this.