Andrew Sullivan links to this piece from a Pakistani blogger on the death of Benazir Bhutto. It reminds us all that, for all the international importance of this event, there is an aspect to such events that is frequently overlooked and yet more tragic still.

At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan - maybe all the world - is Nusrat Bhutto. BenazirÂ’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son poisoned. Another son assasinated. One daughter dead possibly of drug overdose. Another daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.

Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.

All too often, we forget that political leaders are human beings first -- mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and a host of other relationships -- and politicians second. And so while our hearts ache and minds whirl this day as Pakistan continues in its orgy of violent despair following the terrorist murder of its favorite daughter, let us not forget that the Bhutto family has suffered a grievous loss that is more than equal to the loss suffered by the nation of Pakistan itself.

After all, Bhutto, who marked her 20th wedding anniversary only nine days before her murder, leaves behind not only her mother, but also an ill husband and three children. May we each take a moment to spare them a bit of the concern that we have spent on the political and security ramifications of this very human tragedy.

UPDATE: I've never quoted FireDogLake approvingly in the past -- but I'll make an exception for this personal remembrance of a very different Benazir Bhutto.

One of my sisters attended Harvard University as an undergraduate. I helped her move into her freshman dorm in Wigglesworth Hall on Harvard Yard. Wigglesworth was divided into suites with bedrooms and bathrooms off a sitting room with a fireplace. It was an old building and the suites looked like Sherlock Holmes' apartment.

* * *

In the stairwell that first day, the very first new friend my sister made was a cute little freshman in tan corduroy jeans with her dark hair pulled into two pigtails. She looked more like a high school freshman than a college student. She was tacking up fliers for some kind of cause (might have been related to world hunger) on the bulletin boards in the stairwell.

She was pretty and outgoing and introduced herself to us at once, "Hi, I'm Bennie, Bennie Bhutto." She offered to help move the bedding in, and may have carried up the pillows. She had arrived a couple days before my sister and filled us in on the lay of the land: Where the Baskin Robbins was; how to find the bookstore; you name it, she was willing to tour guide.

Over the course of my sister's freshman year, I often drove up to Boston to visit. From Bennie and from stories my sister told me, I learned that Bennie's real name was Benazir, but she had decided to use her nickname in order to fit in better in America.

There is more, much more, about the girl (age 16) who would become the woman. It explains a lot about the family dynamics that resulted in her rise to power, and the problems between her and her brothers. And I'm particularly struck by the closing paragraph.

Other people can analyze what her death means in political terms, in human terms. An intelligent, thoughtful woman is gone from this world, and I am saddened to learn that.

Indeed.

Posted by: Greg at 11:47 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I was about to start typing about the attempted assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto when my wife shouted to me that the attack had been successful, and that the near-certain head of the next Pakistani government was dead.

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, shot in the neck and chest before a homicide bomber blew himself up at a campaign rally. Twenty others also died.

The assassin struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. She was shot as she was entering her car. Her attacker then set off his bomb.

Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery.

Outraged supporters of the martyred politician have placed the blame upon President Pervez Musharraf, though there is currently no evidence to support that presumption.

Her main ally, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been banned from the upcoming election by the Musharraf government, was reportedly at the hospital.

Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and opposition leader, arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto's body.

"Certainly, we condemn the attack on this rally. It demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy," said deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

Pakistan's elections are scheduled for January 8. This event obviously raises the issue of whether the election can proceed on schedule, and of the legitimacy of the results if they do. Developments in the next several hours, and the next few days, will be critical to determining whether or not Pakistan emerges from its era of dictatorship, and whether it slides into political chaos.

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Not long ago, I was expressing hopes that Fidel Castro would fade from the world scene. It appears that the Cuban dictator will not go gently into that good night (or, more likely, the gaping maw of Hell which awaits him).

Fidel Castro remains on the mend, gaining weight, exercising twice a day and continuing to help make the Cuban government's top decisions, his brother Raul Castro says.

The island's acting president gave the first clues about his brother's health in weeks, saying during a Monday speech that he has a "healthier mentality, full use of his mental faculties with some small physical limitations."

At 76, Raul is five years younger than his ailing brother, who has not been seen in public since announcing he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was stepping down in favor of a provisional government in July 2006.

But the younger Castro said his brother remains a key voice in government and that Communist Party leaders support his re-election to Cuba's parliament, the National Assembly — a move that could allow Fidel Castro to keep his post as president of the Council of State.

"We consult him on principal matters, that is why we the leaders of the party defend his right to run again as deputy of the National Assembly as a first step," Raul Castro said.

And so the dictatorship will continue. It is a pity, for the Cuban people deserve better than the decades of oppression they have suffered -- oppression which has caused their best and brightest to flee. And yet we can still hope for a brighter day for Cuba, one in which his corpse is treated with the abuse and contempt received by the body of the dictator Mussolini.

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Fidel may be permanently surrendering power -- but I doubt it.

Fidel Castro indicated Monday in a statement read on state television that he was willing to hand over the reins of CubaÂ’s government to a younger generation of leaders. But his statement remained silent on whether he was speaking hypothetically or had a transition plan in mind.

“My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor even more so, to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived,” said the statement attributed to Mr. Castro, who is 81.

The ailing Mr. Castro, acting in a sort of emeritus role, has produced numerous commentaries in the 16 months since he had abdominal surgery and temporarily handed over power to his younger brother, Raúl, who is 76. But none of the statements until now have addressed the important question of Mr. Castro’s future as Cuba’s president, a position he has held for nearly five decades.

The most recent speculation in Havana had been that Mr. Castro might be trying to make a comeback. His health was said to be improving, and on Dec. 2 he was officially nominated as a candidate for the next National Assembly. The assembly meets in March to choose a 31-member Council of State, which will select the next president.

Because only assembly members qualify for the top job, Mr. Castro’s nomination as a candidate seemed to rule out the notion that he was retiring from politics and ceding power to Raúl, the defense minister and constitutionally designated successor.

I suspect, though, that this is just sort of a polite demurral. Castro will not let go of power -- informally, if not formally -- while he still has breath in him. He is just respecting the constitutional niceties, sort of like Saddam Hussein and many other dictators have done.

I still long to see Fidel and Raul hanging by their heels like Mussolini. Then there will be a great dawning of freedom for all Cubans.

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The former Pakistani Prime Minister is disqualified by the country's top election authority. But it appears his party will stay in the race.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lost his appeal against the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary elections, an official said Tuesday, eliminating a key opposition leader from the crucial vote.

The Election Commission rejected Sharif's appeal Monday, commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said. Dilshad declined to give details, confirming only a report in the Urdu-language Jang daily Tuesday that Sharif was out of the elections.

Sharif, who has been campaigning for his Pakistan Muslim League-N party, has been demanding that President Pervez Musharraf restore Supreme Court judges he sacked during a 42-day state of emergency that he lifted over the weekend.

Sharif's party initially called for a boycott of the vote but decided against it after failing to muster support from other opposition groups for a united action.

Sharif and his supporters can't afford to sit this one out. If they do, they will be effectively excluded from the political dialogue after the election. Also, a significant showing by his party might get the former prime minister's political rights restored, as was done for Benazir Bhutto,

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Proving that international pressure can move even Muslim extremists.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a female rape victim who had been sentenced to 200 lashes for being alone with a man at the time of the attack who was not related to her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

The case had sparked international outcry. In a rare criticism of its Mideast ally, the White House had expressed its ''astonishment'' over the woman's sentence. Canada called it barbaric.

Saudi Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammed al-Sheik told al-Jazirah newspaper that the pardon does not mean the king doubted the country's judges, but instead acted in the ''interests of the people.''

''The king always looks into alleviating the suffering of the citizens when he becomes sure that these verdicts will leave psychological effects on the convicted people, though he is convinced and sure that the verdicts were fair,'' al-Jazirah quoted al-Sheik as saying.

Notice, though, that last little proviso.

The king is sure that the verdict against the rape victim was a fair one -- including, presumably, the additional sentence for daring to speak out against the notion of punishing a victim of a crime.

These folks and their sharia code are simply barbarians.

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You know -- sending dissidents to mental hospitals.

A Russian opposition activist has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by authorities a day before a planned demonstration.

Artem Basyrov's detention is the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived under president Vladimir Putin.

Mr Basyrov, 20, was ordered to be held at a hospital in the central region of Mari El on November 23, a day before planned demonstrations, said Alexander Averin of the opposition National Bolshevik Party.

The party is part of the Other Russia coalition which organised the so-called Dissenters' Marches across the country this year.

Mr Basyrov ran for the local legislature as an Other Russia candidate.

Now the authorities claim to have a perfectly legitimate reason for detaining Basyrov. It does, however, sound rather fishy.

Police who originally detained him claimed he had assaulted a girl.

A local psychiatric board agreed, deciding the activist suffered from a mental illness and he was committed to the psychiatric hospital three weeks ago.

He was only transferred from an isolation ward and allowed to have visitors on Thursday, said Mikhail Klyuzhev, a National Bolshevik member from the city of Yoshkar-Ola.

If, as indicated, he had assaulted someone, why was he hospitalized instead of jailed and charged? That doesn't make sense.

Until you consider this little pattern that has developed in Russia under Putin.

His case is the latest example of journalists or opposition activists being involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals in Russia.

During the Soviet era, dissidents were frequently committed for protesting against Soviet policies.

Last week, Reporters Without Borders said Andrei Novikov, a reporter for a news service connected with Chechen separatist government, was released after nine months in a psychiatric hospital.

Earlier this year Larisa Arap, an Other Russia activist and journalist, spent six weeks in a psychiatric clinic.

Supporters said this was punishment for her critical reporting.

The Global Initiative on Psychiatry, a Dutch watchdog, says psychiatry continues to be used for punitive, political purposes in Russia.

In this country, we can't even get the lunatics put in a mental hospital against their will in most cases. Even the nuttiest political activists (like Cindy Sheehan, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and many Ron Paul supporters) are free to spew their insanity and crackpot platforms -- and then claim persecution when they are forced to follow the same laws as the rest of the country. Let that serve as a pointed reminder of the fact that America has not become the police state these folks claim.

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After a matter of weeks, Pakistan's leader has lifted a state of emergency.

President Pervez Musharraf lifted Pakistan's six-week-old state of emergency and restored the constitution Saturday, easing a crackdown that has enraged opponents and worried Western supporters.

Information Minister Nisar Memon said Musharraf had signed the order lifting the emergency. He called it a "historic day" and said next month's parliamentary elections would cement the country's return to democracy.

"The caretaker government is under oath to hold free, fair, transparent and impartial elections to put the country back on track," Memon said.

Musharraf has insisted that changes he made to the Constitution be left in place, and that his dismissals of judges cannot be challenged or overturned. That is problematic.

However, the elections coming on January 8 have the potential to put Pakistan back on the path to democracy, something that has been in short supply in the country for the last couple of decades (and certainly since Musharraf's 1999 coup). If this election process is transparant and fair, it may be that the former general has done his country a great service, despite having trampled upon democratic principles for years. And if a Bhutto/Sharif coalition emerges in the near future, it may be that Musharraf will find him facing strong opposition in the parliament -- a sign of a healthy democracy if there ever was one.

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Now here's a plan -- name your successor and have your successor give you day-to-day control of the government.

The longtime aide tapped by Vladimir V. Putin to be his successor as president of Russia declared Tuesday that he wanted Mr. Putin to be his prime minister, offering the clearest indication yet of how Mr. Putin plans to maintain firm control over the Kremlin after his term ends next spring.

The announcement, in a speech to the nation by the aide, Dmitri A. Medvedev, raised the prospect of a stark realignment in the structure of the Russian government, which is led by a strong president who appoints a prime minister to serve largely as an administrator.

As prime minister, Mr. Putin could very well overshadow Mr. Medvedev, turning him into the kind of figurehead president found in parliamentary systems like GermanyÂ’s or ItalyÂ’s.

Mr. Putin did not publicly respond to Mr. MedvedevÂ’s offer. But it is widely assumed here that Mr. Medvedev was taking this step at the behest of his patron.

Now this could be interesting. The power that Putin has acquired for himself is not likely to evaporate. His prestige and influence will move with him into the new office. But the end result will be that Putin will have doen an end run around provisions in teh Constitution designed to limit any one man's hold on power -- and that does not bode well for the already weak democracy in Russia.

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And it seems that Pakistan's opposition leaders understand that reality quite well, based upon their decision to participate in next month's elections.

The two main opposition parties led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif said they would participate in Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite deep misgivings about whether the vote could be free and fair.

The move came as an opposition call to boycott the elections foundered Sunday.

Mr. Sharif, the former prime minister who returned from exile two weeks ago but has been barred from running himself, would marshal his party to participate in elections, said Ahsan Iqbal, a party spokesman.

Mr. Sharif had called for a boycott of the election to protest the continued rule of PakistanÂ’s president, Pervez Musharraf, who imposed a state of emergency on Nov. 3, suspending the Constitution and dismissing the Supreme Court. But when Ms. Bhutto, also a former prime minister, made it clear that her party would run, Mr. Sharif could not afford to stay out of the race, Mr. Iqbal said.

The parties that will participate say that they are doing so “under protest,” and that they will mount a campaign against unfair election conditions and the government’s efforts to return a Parliament and government favorable to Mr. Musharraf.

The participation of the main opposition parties would grant some credibility to Mr. Musharraf. Opposition groups that support a boycott argue that fair elections would be impossible with the country still under emergency rule, a muzzled news media and a pro-Musharraf caretaker government, election commission and newly appointed Supreme Court in place.

Ms. Bhutto said her Pakistan Peoples Party would participate in the elections in order to force them to be open and to prevent the pro-Musharraf coalition from winning a majority.

“We believe it is important to take part under protest because by boycotting we play into the hands of Musharraf,” she said in a telephone interview on Sunday from her home in the United Arab Emirates, where she spent the weekend.

Mr. Musharraf has said he will lift emergency rule on Sunday and has pledged to hold “fair and free elections according to the Constitution.”

The current situation in Pakistan is not the best for free elections, but it may be the best opportunity to highlight any unfairness. Furthermore, failure to participate concedes victory to Musharraf and his supporters. The better option is to create a strong opposition bloc -- fi not an opposition majority -- in parliament to try to control the damage.

And let there be no illusion -- none of the leaders -- Bhutto, Sharif, and Musharraf -- are saints. But neither are these leaders with corrupt histories without popular support, so it seems that they are what Pakistan has to work with. May these flawed individuals fashion a vibrant democracy.

Posted by: Greg at 11:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know this sounds weird, but Iraqi concerns that the country cannot handle the influx of returning refugees should be seen as a good thing.

Iraq's government acknowledged Tuesday that it cannot handle a massive return of refugees, as the U.N. announced a $11 million relief package to help the most vulnerable Iraqi families trickling back to their war-ravaged homeland.

The return of refugees is a politically charged issue in this country, where the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is eager to point to recent military gains against al-Qaida in Iraq and other militants as evidence that Iraq is now a relatively safe place.

But the U.S. military has warned that a massive return of refugees could rekindle sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites and that some returnees have found their Baghdad homes occupied by members of the other Muslim sect.

"In reality, the ministry cannot absorb a return on that (large) scale," Iraqi Migration Minister Abdul-Samad Rahman told a news conference. "If the influx is huge, then neither the ministry nor the entire government can handle it."

At the same time, he appeared to take issue with U.S. and U.N. assertions that security remains too fragile for Iraqis to come home in big numbers.

"I am not trying to defend the government or lure Iraqi families to come back, but we must tell the truth: the security situation is 90 percent stable," Rahman said. "The rate at which Iraqis are returning is not proportionate to the level of stability and security."

Think about it -- it has not been all that long since folks were trying desperately to get out of Iraq. Now they want to come back home. That speaks well to the security situation there, and to the success on the ground. But the reality is that people are coming back too fast, and so the Iraqi government needs some help -- on the road to recovery. It is a nice problem to have, don't you think?

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The National Intelligence Estimate SAYS Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program.

A major U.S. intelligence review has concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving toward a bomb.

The new findings, drawn from a consensus National Intelligence Estimate, reflected a surprising shift in the midst of the Bush administration's continuing political and diplomatic campaign to depict Tehran's nuclear development as a grave threat. The report was drafted after an extended internal debate over the reliability of communications intercepts of Iranian conversations this past summer that suggested the program had been suspended.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," a declassified summary of the new National Intelligence Estimate stated. Two years ago, the intelligence community said in contrast it had "high confidence that Iran currently is determined to have nuclear weapons."

The new estimate, prepared by the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, applied the same "high confidence" label to a judgment that suspected Iranian military efforts to build a nuclear weapon were suspended in 2003 and said with "moderate confidence" that it had remained inactive since then.

Even if Iran were to restart its program now, the country probably could not produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single weapon before the middle of the next decade, the assessment stated. It also expressed doubt about whether Iran "currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

Now there are some caveats that need to be added here.

1) The "suspension" of the nuclear weapons program can reasonably be described as more of a pause in the process than a complete shutting down of the program.

2) The assumption is that Iran has not acquired the necessary nuclear material from another source.

3) This does not account for Mahmoud the Mad's rhetoric about raining down destruction on Israel and the United States. Would it have been responsible to assume anything else prior to this NIE?

Oh, and a reminder for my liberal buddies who are going nuts about turf wars in the Executive Branch and the previous White House rhetoric on the issue -- these are the same intelligence agencies that were telling us for several years leading up to the current conflict in Iraq that there Saddam had a flourishing WMD program, at the same moderately confident level. Why do you trust this NIE when the previous one leads you to scream "Bush lied, people died"? Is it just that you like these results?

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They've insisted that all previous discussions on their nuclear program are moot, and that they will continue to work towards "peaceful" (read that "jihadi") uses of nuclear material.

In a sign that Iran has hardened its position on its nuclear program, its new nuclear negotiator said in talks in London on Friday that all proposals made in past negotiations were irrelevant and that further discussion of a curb on IranÂ’s uranium enrichment was unnecessary, senior officials briefed on the meeting said.

The Iranian official, Saeed Jalili, also told Javier Solana, who represented the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in the five-hour talks, that United Nations Security Council resolutions punishing Iran for not suspending its enriched uranium activities were illegal, the officials said.

Representatives of the six countries met in Paris on Saturday afternoon to discuss further punitive Security Council measures against Iran after the final talks in London failed to produce a breakthrough.

So, bombing Iran may yet be the only way to avoid nuclear war. Will Bush have to do it? Or will any Democrat have the balls to do so (and that includes Hillary, who has a pair bigger than any of her male counterparts, which isn't saying much in today's wussified Democrat party)?

But I can't help but note what may be the funniest line in an otherwise serious news story.

The first hour and a half of the meeting on Friday was described as a monologue, with Mr. Jalili speaking about the will of the Iranian people to support uranium enrichment, theology, God, even his doctoral thesis, according to several officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules.

Looks like Mahmoud the mad has found his perfect counterpart for these non-negotiations.

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You have to wonder about the folks who tell developing nations not to use or subsidize fertilizer as a way of ending famines.

Malawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid.

But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe.

In Malawi itself, the prevalence of acute child hunger has fallen sharply. In October, the United Nations Children’s Fund sent three tons of powdered milk, stockpiled here to treat severely malnourished children, to Uganda instead. “We will not be able to use it!” Juan Ortiz-Iruri, Unicef’s deputy representative in Malawi, said jubilantly.

Farmers explain Malawi’s extraordinary turnaround — one with broad implications for hunger-fighting methods across Africa — with one word: fertilizer.

Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, MalawiÂ’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.

Stung by the humiliation of pleading for charity, he led the way to reinstating and deepening fertilizer subsidies despite a skeptical reception from the United States and Britain. MalawiÂ’s soil, like that across sub-Saharan Africa, is gravely depleted, and many, if not most, of its farmers are too poor to afford fertilizer at market prices.

“As long as I’m president, I don’t want to be going to other capitals begging for food,” Mr. Mutharika declared. Patrick Kabambe, the senior civil servant in the Agriculture Ministry, said the president told his advisers, “Our people are poor because they lack the resources to use the soil and the water we have.”

Good grief! We in America make the great Midwestern agricultural zone explode with food each year through the use of fertilizers. In Israel, the desert has bloomed for the same reason. Why the heck tell developing nations -- nations where people are starving -- not to use the methods that we know work for us?

Am I for a free market? You bet I am. But in a case like Malawi, where the choice is between a little socialism and a lot of starvation, I fall firmly on the side of ensuring that people have enough to eat. It is time for other nations to follow the example set by this formerly starving African nation -- and for those who encourage a different path to question their own wisdom and motivations.

Posted by: Greg at 04:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The little dictator of Venezuela has made it pretty clear that he will win tomorrow's constitutional referendum by fraud -- and that he will punish anyone who attempts to call him on it.

A threat by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop oil exports to the United States has raised the stakes over a Sunday referendum he has called in a bid to expand his powers.

Chavez told tens of thousands of supporters late Friday he was putting Venezuela's oil field and refineries under military "protection" and would halt the exports "if this (referendum) is used as a pretext to start violence in Venezuela."

He accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of preparing to spread unrest during the plebiscite in an effort to topple him, and said if its operation was activated "there won't be a drop of oil from Venezuela to the United States."

Given that he polls show the people of Venezuela sharply split on the referendum and that many of his earliest and closest associates oppose the measures, a victory is bound to be questioned by both internal opponents and foreign sources. After all, he has refused to allow international monitors for the election -- not even the dictator-loving, anti-American Jimmy Carter will be permitted to ensure that the elections are free and fair. That about says it all.

And if the international press attempts to reveal the shenanigans, they will be deported and permanently barred from the country.

He renewed his harsh criticisms of Juan Carlos and Uribe, with whom he has had recent high-profile disputes, and threatened to take independent Venezuela television network Globovision off the air if it broadcast partial results during the voting. He also threatened to take action against international networks, accusing CNN in particular of overstating the strength of the opposition's numbers.

"If any international channel comes here to take part in an operation from the imperialist against Venezuela, your reporters will be thrown out of the country, they will not be able to work here," Chavez said. "People at CNN, listen carefully: This is just a warning."

In other words, don't question my vote fraud.

Chavez keeps rambling on about CIA assassination plots. Our laws forbid such things. Too bad -- it might be the only thing that the Left and the Right in this country might be able to agree on (Hollywood excepted).

Instead, we are likely to see a free people enslaved, just like the Cubans, and will stand by and do nothing, to our eternal shame.

Posted by: Greg at 05:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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