Soccer Dad

The silence of obama

The other day I posted about the detrimental effect that President Obama's open friendliness towards Hugo Chavez likely had on Venezuela's Jewish community. The Washington Post, which endorsed Barack Obama for president, in an editorial points to another aspect of the President's silence towards to the dictator in Courting Mr. Chavez.

"Let's try to see whether there is any opportunity to move President Chávez away from the influences" of Iran and others, she proposed.

That's certainly a worthy goal -- and we have no objection to Mr. Obama's handshake with Mr. Chávez. The administration's strategy -- to open up a constructive dialogue with Venezuela and avoid being cast as Mr. Chávez's Yanqui foil -- is reasonable; it is also the same strategy as was tried, unsuccessfully, by the previous two administrations. What doesn't make sense is to deliberately ignore steps by Mr. Chávez to consolidate an autocracy. In so doing, the administration encourages Latin American governments that have shrunk from confronting the Venezuelan strongman to continue in their own silence. It sends pro-Chávez governments in countries such as Bolivia and Nicaragua the message that they can persecute their own domestic opponents with impunity. And it makes it more rather than less likely that Venezuela, with the help of Iran and Russia, will become a threat to the United States.

While the editors of the Post aren't bothered by the photo-op (as I was) nonetheless they take their candidate to task for his silence towards Chavez's growing autocracy.