Venezuela was elected to the UN Security Council without a peep of opposition from the Obama Administration.

While the Bush Administration saw to it that Venezuela was persona non grata at the UN, it is clearly not a priority in this White House. Well, Obama did once call Hugo Chavez “mi amigo.” Hugo Chavez may be dead, but his policies aren’t. His daughter, Maria Gabriela, is the country’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN. EvenThe New York Times took the Maduro regime to task only last month for jailing opposition leaders, utilizing the army against unarmed protesters and putting greater restrictions on the media warning that it should not get a seat on the Security Council.

But thanks in part to the Obama Administration it has won a seat and it will begin its two year term next year along with Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand and Spain which narrowly beat out Turkey. That would have been doubly embarrassing. Still, Venezuela’s presence on the Security Council is bad enough.