Venezuela Update

Jimmy Carter left Venezuela after declaring Hugo Chavez' "election" legitimate and had nothing but praise for the Communist dictator. Now the farce that Carter helped perpetuate may well be coming back to smack him:

No one has demoralized Venezuela's democracy more than America's worst-ever president. The only legitimate reason he has to go to Caracas is to beg Venezuelans for forgiveness after that sorry show he put on last August, endorsing an election that was clearly stolen with his complicity. The Carter Center's shoddy election monitoring and mendacious spin control in the aftermath turned a profound exercise in democracy into a miserable affair swept under the rug, while Carter prepared to move on to the next election. But something happened along the way to the next election: The State Department declined to endorse Carter's recall referendum observational results, as it had announced it would, and nobody important wanted the Carter Center's business anymore. Carter was conspicuously absent from the dead-serious elections in Ukraine and Iraq recently. Ever the vindictive little man, Carter "participated" in those by sniping at these great human events from the sidelines. For that, President Bush didn't care to call on him to lead tsunami relief either, as he did all other able-bodied former presidents. That's not all. The Carter Center seems to have fallen on other hard times since its name began to reek in the wake of the Venezuela fiasco. Carter's top lieutenant, Jennifer McCoy, is trying to sell a book and the lecture circuit on her Venezuelan experiences. That's hard to sell when no one believes you. But in Venezuela, as in the U.S., there are usually reasons when no one believes you. The Carter Center brushed off studies by top economists like Ricardo Hausmann conclusively showing the extent of the fraud. And arrogantly, McCoy herself rebuffed a group of liberal-leaning Venezuelan bloggers in the Boston area, who painstakingly attempted to ask polite questions to claify how the Carterites came to their conclusions during the recall referendum. She didn't have the time of day for them, and added that there were "so many" bulletin boards. That certainly was convenient for her career purposes. But it came at the expense of the Venezuelans' legitimate interest in an explanation and their valid civic interests. Quite a tradeoff for someone who claims to be a peacemaker. But no surprise for someone affiliated with an insincere weakling and coward like Jimmy Carter. Rightwing blogger Alek Boyd wasn't impressed with her e-mailed responses to his questions either. In short, the Carter Center's blown off every Venezuelan they've come in contact with.

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