Despite exit polls showing that Venezuelan dictator/president Hugo Chavez lost the presidential election Sunday, the Venezuelan electoral council declared Chavez the victor. The announcement has many in Venezuela declaring election fraud. The numbers seem to back them up, as all the exit polls showed Chavez lost to challenger Henriques Capriles by a slim margin. And Chavez himself seemed to show his hand when he sent tanks and troops armed with AK-47's into the streets before the final results were announced. Now why would troops and tanks be needed if Chavez lost?? They wouldn't. They would only be needed if the president knew that he would be declared the winner no matter what the polls said, and that protests to an illegal election would take place. It was clearly a pre-emptive move designed to squash any thought of protests BEFORE the illegal results were declared. This looks like a pretty clear case of election fraud and a dictatorial leader staying in power illegally.
And what did the Obama Administration do about this clear case of fraud and tyranny? They congratulated Chavez and the Venezuelan people "on the high level of participation, as well as on what was a relatively peaceful election process." That quote came from White House spokesman Jay Carney. (An apt name since the Obama Administration looks more like a two-bit carnival freak show than a competent band of leaders at times)
I remember watching a special on Vladimir Putin shortly before he "won" his re-election bid. At one point it mentioned what happened in the country of Georgia in 2003. There were apparent fraudulent results in the parliamentary elections that year (helped by Putin) and the resulting protests led to the ouster of their president at the time, since he was complicit in the fraud. The United States strongly condemned the illegal election fraud, made strong statements urging new elections, and even sent Secretary of State James Baker there to push those free elections. The result was an ouster of a corrupt president, a new election un-tainted by fraud, and a freer Georgia hailed as a better place by it's citizens.
Today, when a corrupt dictator "wins" a clearly fraudulent election, keeping his own people down with tanks and soldiers in the street, the president of the United States congratulates him and moves on like nothing happened. Great foreign policy, Barack.
But of course Barack Hussein Obama doesn't think Hugo Chavez is such a bad dude. Remember this quote he made in July: "But overall my sense is that what Mr. Chávez has done over the last several years has not had a serious national security impact on us. We have to be vigilant. My main concern when it comes to Venezuela is having the Venezuelan people have a voice in their affairs, and that you end up ultimately having fair and free elections, which we don't always see."
Wait. What was that? What's your main concern? That the Venezuelan people have a voice and ultimately have fair and free elections? Um...should we chalk that up as another lie or would you like to take that back? Perhaps the altitude screwed up your thought process again. Maybe you should've said your main concern was getting yourself re-elected, because that's all it seems like you really care about.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, had this to say about the president's comments and Hugo Chavez: “This is a stunning and shocking comment by the President. It is disturbing to see him downplaying the threat posed to U.S. interests by a regime that openly wishes us ill. Hugo Chavez has provided safe haven to drug kingpins, encouraged regional terrorist organizations that threaten our allies like Colombia, has strengthened military ties with Iran and helped it evade sanctions, and has allowed a Hezbollah presence within his country's borders. And he is seeking to lead – together with the Castros – a destabilizing, anti-democratic, and anti-American ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ across Latin America. President Obama's remarks continue a pattern of weakness in his foreign policy, one that has emboldened adversaries and diminished U.S. influence in every region of the world. As president, I will speak clearly and resolutely on the challenges we face so that both our allies and our adversaries will know where we stand.”
Looks like Romney is gonna crush Obama on the foreign policy debate just as easily as he did on the economic debate.
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