Conservative Rumblings

Hugo Chavez, the increasingly agitating semi-dictator of Venezuela, has won a major victory in his effort to eliminate those pesky term limits that stop him from pulling a Fidel Castro and ruling forever.

With 94 percent of the vote counted, 54 percent had voted in favor of the constitutional amendment, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena announced. Forty-six percent had voted against the measure to eliminate term limits on all public officials, too few to make up the distance with the remaining votes.

“Today we opened wide the gates of the future. Venezuela will not return to its past of indignity,” Chavez proclaimed after singing the national anthem from the balcony of his Miraflores palace.

Chavez has made his anti-American sentiments clear (blue eyed devils, et al), and now he’s set himself up to be dictator for life while we have just elected the weakest President in 60 years. Perfect.

At their campaign headquarters, Chavez opponents hugged one another, and some cried. They said the results were skewed by Chavez’s broad use of state resources to get out the vote, through a battery of state-run news media, pressure on 2 million public employees and frequent presidential speeches which all television stations were required to air.

Doesn’t that just sound eerily familiar to an election WE just had?