But with his rhetoric, support for anti-American forces in Latin America, suppression of domestic dissent, and budding alliance with Iran, Chavez has signalled his desire to fill that empty slot in the Axis of Evil.
That day has arrived:
Hugo Chavez has just about everything a president could want: popular support, a marginalized opposition, congress firmly on his side and a booming economy as he starts his new six-year term.
Now, he's about to become even more powerful — the all-Chavista National Assembly is poised to approve a "mother law" as early as Wednesday enabling him to remake society by presidential decree. In its latest draft, the law would allow Chavez to dictate measures for 18 months in 11 broad areas, from the "economic and social sphere" to the "transformation of state institutions."
Chavez calls it a new era of "maximum revolution," setting the tone for months of upheaval as he plans to nationalize companies, impose new taxes on the rich and reorient schools to teach socialist values. With near-religious fervor and plenty of oil wealth, Chavez is mobilizing millions of Venezuelans, intent on creating a more egalitarian society.
For fools like Chavez, equality always means impoverishing everyone. Well, except for Hugo and his closest supporters.
Thugs like Chavez view popularity as a fleeting thing. He knows that his popularity took him to the pinnacle of power and he doesn't want anything as worthless as popularity to dethrone him. Voting is a means only and he's had enough votes. Why risk having those pesky voters turn on him when the see what the maximum revolution does to the people of Venezuela?
Oh, and by popularity I only mean his popularity in Venezuela will be at risk. Our Left will love him all the more. And just in time, too, as Castro continues to die and Nicaragua's Ortega is a couple decades too late to be really popular. Hugo helps avoid that embarrassing void in a Latin American strongman that our Left needs to have.
One day, soon, Hugo will be a threat to us. Not because we've created this threat but because Hugo desperately wants this status.
I just hope that success in the Long War will allow us the chance to defeat this threat without harming the main effort.
