Nancy Pelosi deserves credit for her strong condemnation of Hugo Chavez:
"Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar
but all he is an everyday thug," House Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi said at a news conference, referring to Chavez' comments in
a U.N. General Assembly speech on Wednesday.
"Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the
United Nations," said Pelosi, a frequent Bush critic. "He demeaned
himself and he demeaned Venezuela."
Amen. Even if Pelosi is saying this only for political reasons
(it's a rare opportunity to tack right on foreign policy without
offending a significant portion of the Democratic base), it's still
a very good thing that she said it. When the world sees headlines
like "Leading Bush critic at home calls Chavez a 'thug'" it's a
very healthy thing.
I wish I could offer the same praise to Charlie Rangel, but I
can't shake the feeling that there's something a little off in his
condemnation of Chavez. His press release says that "demeaning public attack
against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all
Americans, as an attack on all of us." That's pretty obviously not
true, isn't it? And look at what he said at his
press conference (video):
I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez
or any other president, do not come to the United States and think
because we have problems with our president that any foreigner can
come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel
offended when you offend our Chief of State.
The garbled syntax makes it hard to tell, but it sounds as if
Rangel is not only making the perfectly cogent point that what may
be fair comment by some excited blogger is inappropriate coming
from a visiting head of government, but actually going further and
saying that the offensiveness of a criticism turns on the critic's
nationality. If that's what he means, it's just crude nativism; the
implication is that what's okay for Rangel to say is not okay for a
non-citizen like (for example) Andrew Sullivan to say. That strikes
me as a non-patriot's bad impression of patriotism.
topics:
Foreign Policy, Nancy Pelosi, United Nations
