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The Spectacle Blog
What is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton doing shaking hands with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez? The two exchanged pleasantries in Brazil during the inauguration of its new President Dilma Rousseff.
The Obama Administration did the right thing a few days ago in revoking the visa of Venezuela’s Ambassador to the U.S. after Chavez would not recognize President Obama’s appointment of Larry Palmer as U.S. Permanent Representative in Caracas. Now if Chavez had reversed his decision and recognized Palmer one could argue that a handshake would be in order. But Hillary’s handshake with Hugo sends the message that the Obama Administration isn’t really all that angry with Chavez. I guess the Obama Administration reserves that kind of anger for the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yet you would have thought the Obama Administration would have learned its lesson. Despite President Obama referring to Chavez as his “mi amigo” nearly two years ago, Venezuela’s mercurial leader has been as contemptuous of Obama as he was of President Bush. Meanwhile, Chavez has been getting very cozy with Iran. Last October, Chavez and Ahmadinejad pledged to unite and create a “new world order.”
Needless to say, Hillary’s handshake with Hugo does not inspire confidence and gets 2011 off to an inauspicious start.
nydivide | 1.2.11 @ 3:34AM
Marxism is alive and well in the United States, unfortunately.
solidground| 1.2.11 @ 10:46AM
Other than needing to keep Hill out of DC for four years, didn't Obama appoint her Secretary of State because her many world travels during Bill's presidency made her imminently qualified? I seem to recall that was part of the Great One's rationale. Traveling all over as she did on the taxpayer dollar throughout the '90s, I'm sure she shook many, many hands. Shaking hands with Sluggo was simply doing what she does best. And most. As for actual diplomacy, well ....
stacy | 1.2.11 @ 12:51PM
Oh please, she was being a diplomat. What was she supposed to do, run away from him so that he could use that video clip for propaganda at home? All you conservatives are long on tough talk so long as you are huddled safely behind your 'puters. I'd rather she behaved like an adult as opposed to just huffing and puffing or running away like a scared child. What exactly did George Bush achieve with Chavez, positive or negative. Not really anything.
US policy towards Venezuela has not changed- we have not been reaching out to Chavez and one handshake on the sidelines of an inauguration doesn't change that.
The reality is that while it sounds nice to simply ignore those with whom we have vociferous disagreements, it's not how any rational person would run anything- not a company and not a country.
If you want Hillary to give the cold shoulder to Chavez then why not also the corrupt House of Saud or the corrupt Colombians? Oh, that's right, so long as their corruption is in line with your beliefs, it's all ok.
Wayne | 1.2.11 @ 1:06PM
How neatly you ignore what Chavez has been doing. He has continued to ratchet his strangle-hold on the people of Venezuela. He has been doing arms deals which include long ranged missiles.
What the handshake signifies is that the US just doesn't care. He can do what he likes, the people of the region be damned. Obama can talk tough with BP and Israel, but when it comes to the real enemies of the people he is amazingly compliant.
wodiej| 1.2.11 @ 8:03PM
the more important question is, why did someone from the US need to be there for this event in the first place?
Charles Martel| 1.3.11 @ 2:30PM
Part of being a diplomat, you twit, is knowing when *not* to shake hands. Clinton's duty was to sit in the same room with the Venezuelan thug; it was also her duty to pretend not to notice him. Sitting quietly and not making a further muddle of things is all Hillary is good for anyway, notwithstanding that she's not any good at even that.
Not to worry: policy will be much clearer and more effectively advanced from 2013 onward when someone like, say, John Bolton is secretary of state.
+++
heir2freedom | 1.2.11 @ 2:05PM
"nydivide" hit the nail on the head. HRC is a true-blue progressive idealogue, as is Obama.
Progressive idealogue = Marxist.
Read a mostly hidden story about what the governmental Marxists in Venezuela recently did that eerily parallels exactly what is going on with the Progressive Dems right here in the good ol' US of A :
PEAS IN A POD: HUGO CHAVEZ RIPS PAGE FROM OBAMA PLAYBOOK
http://heir2freedom.blogspot.c.....havez.html
Liberal Reader| 1.2.11 @ 5:42PM
Uh...
Hillary Clinton is the lead diplomat of the United States?
Like, shaking hands sort of comes with the job?
Like, George Bush holding hands with a Arab dictator was any better?
Like -- are you guys, do you guys just like pretend to be dumbasses, or are you like this stupid?
wodiej| 1.2.11 @ 8:02PM
Don't you like, have to be at least, like 13 to post on, like, blogs?
Roscoe| 1.3.11 @ 8:46AM
Liberal Reader is now outed; he's a valley girl.
Charles Martel| 1.3.11 @ 2:33PM
As I wrote above, *not* shaking hands also comes with the job, and Hillary, being a big girl, is supposed to know that.
She's a useless placeholder. No, wait, she's worse than that: she and her Kenyan employer are actually setting us back. Shame. shame on both of them.
+++
LiveFreeOrDie| 1.2.11 @ 6:19PM
Shrug your shoulders and put on a confused face and stare blankly into the camera and you just acted out a Jon Stewart skit. Complete BS logic but slightly humorous if you're stupid.
Like, no. Comes with job? That's your rationale? Using that logic she could shake hands and schmooze with ANYONE and it would be perfectly acceptable. Anything goes if your a lib puke, right?
Liberal Reader| 1.2.11 @ 9:26PM
Live --
Well.... What is it that you would have her do exactly?
We're not at WAR with Venezuela. Venezuela is a country in our neighborhood. It would be sort of nice to have contact with them -- diplomatic -- to keep an eye on what's going on there.
The kind of complaint being levied here against Clinton and -- obviously -- Obama is so transparently cynical and foolish it hardly requires being refuted.
The United States of America does in fact have diplomats and a State Department. It goes back to our founding. The first Secretary of State was Thomas Jefferson, and since him there have been many others. And they've often met with, spoken to, and presumably shaken the hands of some pretty unsavory characters.
There just doesn't seem to be a reasonable ground to criticize this.
I'm always surprised by the lame grounds on which people around here choose to criticize Obama. Seems like there's plenty of room for improvement in DC.
You all should check out liberal critics of Obama's foreign policy to get some idea of how it's done. Not on the substance of the complaints, of course. Just on the skills involved in making an interesting argument.
Of course you really did cut me down to size by calling me a "liberal puke." That was witty. Man. I'm just like reeling from that one. Scintillating wit.
Alan Brooks| 1.3.11 @ 5:56AM
Quote "Of course you really did cut me down to size by calling me a "liberal puke." That was witty. Man. I'm just like reeling from that one. Scintillating wit"
Well, it must have worked: your generation x lingo seemed to have slightly improved, no more useless and unnerving "likes"...
Otherwise, we do not need assholes like Chavez, Ortega and Castro in our neighborhood and we don't need to talk to them just to be nice and for the sake of it. But it is about the proper thing to do and you liberals wouldn't understand.
LiveFreeOrDie| 1.3.11 @ 11:04AM
"Of course you really did cut me down to size by calling me a "liberal puke." That was witty. Man. I'm just like reeling from that one. Scintillating wit."
Read it again. The lib puke was Clinton, you were only the defender of said puke.
One hardly needs to read, "...liberal critics of Obama's foreign policy..." to criticize this guy's almost exactly backward foreign policy. Kiss the ass of every scumbag dictator while deeply offending our friends and allies. That about sums it up doesn't it?
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 1:06PM
No, that does not sum it up.
You're attempt to simplify and reduce everything to a quick and easy apothegm is not going to increase your understanding of the world.
The words you use are shaped by your world view. However, they also help to shape that world view. This was Orwell's point in his great essay on language and politics.
If you put things and reductive terms, you'll come to see the world in an impoverished way.
But like I don't expect to convince anyone of that around here dude.
Yosemeti Sam| 1.2.11 @ 11:17PM
" ... But Hillary's handshake with Hugo sends the message that the Obama Administration isn't really all that angry with Chavez ...."
OR, maybe it's just Hugo expressing grasping thanks to BHOs' SOS for not making generally known to Americans that his 'incognito' Citgo gas stations operating here in America help fuel his dictatorship.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 1:24PM
Or, to really sum it up, Hugo Chavez doesn't appear to be like the dictator you would like to believe to be, because he is a nice and genial guy according to Sean Penn who has visited him many times. Besides who could replace him should he resign? A capitalist pig? A banker on Wall St payroll? He has done more for promoting free health care than anybody else in Latin America and he has a great view on foreign policy. I think he will have a strong and benevolent influence on Amindjihad in Iran and the new korean strongman. A proof of the superiority of goodwill upon bold display of macho strength.
ned| 1.3.11 @ 1:41PM
Wow. Is someone using your handle LR, or do you really believe Hugo is commendable (much less Sean Penn)?
I don't believe there is a requirement that Clinton show up for an inauguration of a puppet office holder in a mild-for-now dictatorship.
Liberal Reader| 1.3.11 @ 8:17PM
Ned --
Yes someone used my handle to write the ludicrous post to which you responded.
I do NOT think Chavez is a good man or decent man. I think he's pretty much what people on this thread think, actually. But I also have -- it seems -- a more robust view of what the Secretary of State's job is.
Sean Penn, for the record, I believe to be a very good actor. I think there are probably only three or four currently in movies that can match him. Can he be a little silly when it comes to politics and public spectacles? Yes, he can. I think his work in Haiti is commendable. But, he sometimes makes an ass of himself.
Charles Martel| 1.3.11 @ 2:41PM
Oh my God. So much Leftist tripe in so few words. I'm impressed and depressed all at once.
Sean Penn likes Chavez? I hear Oliver Stone does too. Well, that should settle it for all of us, shouldn't it?
You must be smoking something truly chronic to think even for a moment that Chavez's purpose in cozying up to the enemies of America, the West, and the peace of the world will in any way ameliorate either international tensions or those dictators' cruelty toward their own people.
Your having displayed such staggering ignorance of foreign affairs or even of human nature, what you "think" is worth no more than the paper it's currently printed on.
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Career Soldier| 1.3.11 @ 8:38AM
Oh, come on; it was personal not professional. Don't you see the "Oh Hugo" look on her face?
Chavez is a powerful latin dictator and "Old Hill" is obviously entranced by powerful men.
Just because she has man hands (didja look at the mits on her?) doesn't mean she isn't in the market for a little horizontal rhumba. I mean come on, she may be vindictive, petty, hard hearted, and homely as sin, but she still has physical needs, and "Old Bill" is busy hanging around the WH press room hoping for another bone.
FastJohnny| 1.3.11 @ 8:57AM
Take heart, according to an article I just read, a large percentage of the Clinton's buds seem to die. Maybe it is a good thing that she shook hands with Hugo Shov-ins.
Chuck| 1.3.11 @ 12:22PM
Hillary/Hugo,
Two peas in a pod, both marxists, both anti-American, both evil and both corrupt to the Nth degree.