Yes, I am biased, and with good reason.
Having been born in a third rate Communist country, and having seen first hand what Socialism gone wrong looks like, color me skeptical that anything positive will come out of the Obama – Chavez handshake in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad this past week.
Nothing good for the US that is, for Chavez it was a once in a lifetime photo-op to try and legitimize his place on the “Who’s Who List” of third-world dictators. What more can you say about Chavez than that his idol and mentor is Cuba’s Fidel Castro?
Still, Obama is trying to stick to his guns, calling the meeting with the long-winded and narcissistic Venezuelan leader, at the Summit of the Americas, "an opportunity for frank dialogue on a range of issues, including critical issues of democracy and human rights throughout the hemisphere." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090419/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cb_obama_summit)
Sure, I would love to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt on that, but honestly, I know better. Having lived in a Communist country, I know that there is no love lost for America in a country whose leader idolizes a monster like Castro.
So I have two choices, I can take the high road and say that we have a President who is naïve enough not to have figured out by now that no good can come out of making friends with Chavez, or I can have the ugly opinion that they are Socialist birds of a feather with more than a few points in common. An ugly thought to have of your President, sure, but didn’t we just recently wade knee deep into the nationalization of private businesses?
Isn’t that a page right out of the Socialist handbook that Chavez follows? Didn’t Castro too begin by nationalizing businesses the minute he took over the Island nation of Cuba? Hey, I’m just keeping it real. My ideas of “hope and change” goes no where near replacing the U.S. Constitution with the Communist Manifesto.
For his part, Chavez who wanted nothing to do with the last US Presidential Administration, goig as far as calling Obama “much smarter than the last president.” The problem is that it doesn’t really matter if the statement is true or false, what really matters is a US-hater like Hugo Chavez would not make that kind of statement if he did not have a hidden agenda to go along with it.
Obama, on the other hand, shakes off the critics by saying, "It's hard to believe we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States" by talking with Chavez. Sure okay, but lets count the times in which talking to a third-rate dictator has accomplished anything for US strategic interests? Anyone really believe that the Cuban missile crisis could have been avoided by a talk between Kennedy and Castro? Really? Or did it a take a hard stance and a blockade of the Island nation?
At least let us hope that Chavez has not added Obama to “his Five” or that he will be referring to the US President as his new BFF. Only time will tell though.
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