Hugo Chavez: Lover of Tyrants

The liberal love affair with Venezuelan brute Hugo Chavez should finally come to an end. A populist demagogue who has centralized power in his hands, sidelined his opposition and accused them of being "traitors", wrecked the Venezuelan economy (once the richest in Latin America) through central planning and other "21st Century Socialism" plots, and had his puppet parliament bequeath him the power to issue ukases, and openly declared that should he lose his reelection he would refuse to relinquish power. This, of all men, should never be considered anything by an authoritarian zealot and a buffoonish vestige on the world stage, to boot.

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If the Left hasn't discovered it yet perhaps Chavez's views on the Arab revolutions will illustrate it. A past recipient of the Gadhafi prize for human rights, Chavez has declared his solidarity with the deranged Libyan tyrant who has unleashed his own military against the Libyan people. Chavez considers Gadhafi revolutionary brother, a comrade. And they are part of the same alliance against "the empire". Chavez offered to mediate between Gadhafi and pro-democracy rebels and may eventually offer the Libyan dictator and his family exile. I fear to say that if Chavez loses the 2012 election, he made behave in a similar manner as Gadhafi, especially considering that he has the army's chief of staff as endorsing the permanence of a Chavez presidency. One watches in anxiety for the Venezuelan people.

Then there's "brother" Assad of Syria. Chavez recently called this dictator to express support for his tyrannical rule and brutal and deadly suppression of civilian democratic demonstrators.

In this recent statement on the popular uprising swiping the region, Chavez dismissed the idea that they were indigenous pro-democracy movements, but, rather, the insidious work of "the empire" designed to cause havoc in the region in order to serve as pretext for an American invasion into oil-rich Libya. A sort of false flag operation with an stupid name (Operation Odyssey Dawn. Ok. You have to concede that to Chavez). That's the conspiracy de jour for this buffoon, no less repulsive than the Iranian regime's rhetoric of delayed "Islamic Revolution" and equally designed to deflect attention from the democracy and opportunity deficits in both nations.

Chavez is a clownish friend of dictators who has added one more tyrant in the world while ones fall in the Arabs domain. Chavez is mimicking the very rulers Arabs are seeking to overthrow. No wonder his words of solidarity. His authoritarian bent threatens the people of Venezuela and one day liberals will sorely regret their support for him, and denounce him like they did Egypt's Mubarak. They should not delay.

Chavez should be seen as the brutal tyrant-in-making that he long sought to be.