Lying down to Rio?

For any one keeping score this has not been a good week for BushCo by any stretch of the imagination. 3 scandals, a conviction, and a resignation in waiting. A stock market correction - as predicted by yours truly way back in October - capped off by Chicken George's flight to Latin America to escape the press corp (and setting off riots and mayhem wherever he landed). Why do foreign governments allow him entry knowing that they will inevitably be forced to send out the heavy artillery to protect him? Of course seeing such troop strength being deployed so effectively must surely re-enforce W's conviction in the surge. If it works in Bogota it should work in Baghdad...

But with Fidel on the mend, Hugo on the go-go, not to mention Lula doing the ethanol hula, the continent is potentially moving in the right direction -actually that would be left - from its Yanqui cousin. What we're potentially seeing, in the words of Condi the Irrelevant, are truly the birth pangs of democracy. Not in the middle East but happening now in Latin America. It may not be the powdered wig, 1776 variety, but a very real, market driven, populist democracy and egalitarian distribution of wealth brought about by unprecedented demand for energy - both petroleum, gas and green energy. This is a fascinating turn of events - more so since it is happening under our noses and without any assistance from us. Of course, many of you will say that Chavez is a dictator, that he rules by decree and that he's nationalized several foreign enterprises. I say - Chavez won his election(s), his congress was extremely corrupt and ineffective, he is extremely popular with his people and that the industries he's taken over - utilities btw - he paid fair market value and that it is a violation of sovereignty to have foreigners running your critical telecommunications and electrical infrastructure. He has become a spokesperson for much of the dispossessed in the 3rd world and keeps critical issues on the front burner including global health care, poverty, and education. More importantly, Internet access is widely available, the press is still open, and people can leave the country, and there is a functioning judiciary and a market economy. This of course underscores the egregious violations in our own constitution first perpetrated by John Ashcroft and then compounded by Alberto Gonzalez. Their records would make you think we were the ones living under a banana republic dictatorship.

It's absolutely obscene - from prisoners being held at Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, FBI agents violating wiretapping and habeas corpus, to the firing of Federal Prosecutors for failing to pass the political litmus test. Who's the one defending democracy and who's the one subverting it? We could be listening to reports from Peronist Argentina or Pinochet's Chile but we're not - they're happening right here. With Libby's conviction this week we were shown a spotlight - albeit a small one - but a spotlight nevertheless on how this administration has conducted itself. Using fear, uncertainty and doubt, not to mention all the viciousness and pettiness of fighting sorority sisters, there is nothing too vile that they wouldn't do to keep their grip on power. Most tragically for this country is that they're also hopelessly incompetent - as we keep seeing over and over and over again. And that is precisely why they are so dangerous. They cannot control the events they set in motion which in turn creates its own consequences they cannot foresee and cannot overcome.

All the birds are now coming home to roost - Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, the environment, the economy, all at the same time. Given this administration's abysmal track record with even minor crises anyone taking bets on how well they're going to do over the next 18 months? Caracas is looking pretty good about now...