Chavez’s New Friend

Hugo Chavez, Communist dictator of Venezuela, has good reason to look forward to an Obama presidency. Obama’s friend Bill Ayers came to Venezuela a couple of years ago, addressed Chavez and his colleagues as “comrades,” and said that he wanted American education to follow the Venezuelan model, where children are indoctrinated into socialism. Does Obama agree? It’s hard to say, given that he never answers any questions, but we do know that at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama funded Ayers’ radically anti-American and racially separatist “education” projects.

Chavez also knows that Obama is hostile to Chavez’s bitter enemy, Colombia, which until now has been pro-American, to the point where Obama wants to block any reduction in tariffs on American goods shipped to Colombia. And perhaps Chavez, who funds the terrorist “FARC” group that seeks to overthrow the government of Colombia, knows more than we do about the strange case of Jim and Tucker:

In a Dec. 11 message to the secretariat, Marquez [FARC’s contact with Chavez, who lives in Venezuela] writes: “If you are in agreement, I can receive Jim and Tucker to hear the proposal of the gringos.”

Writing two days before his death, Reyes [FARC’s “foreign minister”] tells his comrades that “the gringos,” working through Ecuador’s government, are interested “in talking to us on various issues.”

“They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama,” he writes, saying Obama rejects both the Bush administration’s free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.

Today, Chavez confirmed that he looks forward to working with America’s new president:

Chavez says that relations between Venezuela and the U.S, now at their lowest point in years, could improve in an Obama presidency.

During a televised speech on Sunday, Chavez said he would meet with Obama only “on equal and respectful terms.”

Even tinpot dictators know that the conditions placed on meetings between heads of state are important.

Chavez ordered the U.S. ambassador out of Venezuela on Sept. 12, accusing the envoy of involvement in a purported assassination plot. U.S. officials deny it.

He also recalled his ambassador from Washington and suggested that relations would not be fully restored until U.S. President George W. Bush leaves the White House.

“Hopefully with Obama, we will enter a new phase,” Chavez said.

I’m sure we will.

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