A friend in Venezuela sends this excerpt from an editorial by Ana Julia Jatar in the leading liberal daily El Nacional (09/25):

“The truth is that all the nonsense our President has said in the United States confirms that for him, worrying about unemployment, insecurity, inflation and housing for Venezuelans is already too small. We will have to face these problems with candidate Manuel Rosales, because Chávez is very busy saving other peoples, including the Americans, whom he recently asked to ‘wake up’ and choose a better president. American Democrats and Republicans have closed ranks to defend their President. The Venezuelan President has made an error in calculation. Americans thought that Chávez was a nice guy trying to help the poor, victim of a Venezuelan selfish oligarchy. Now they learned that our President is offensive, vulgar, and intolerant. President Chávez has lost key support in Washington, Latin America, Europe and in other world continents. If he continues like that, making up enemies and ‘saving’ other peoples from the Devil, he will continue to make mistakes that will soon lead him to his political defeat. Being the idol of Hizbollah and of Cuba does not benefit Venezuela. Chávez’s fights with the world cost Venezuelans too much. He no longer defends our interests. It is time Venezuelans woke up, too and chose a new President, December is getting closer.”

Unfortunately, Chavez’s massive oil-windfall handouts to the poor (which can only ruin labor productivity in the long run) have kept his popularity quite high. He has an infinite supply of $20 bills which he hands out daily for those who go to school, join the (inactive) reserves, etc., etc. Recent polls suggest he leads opposition candidate Roasales 3-to-1 headed into the December national elections. But being anti-American is not very popular in Venezuela, where more than 60% of the population continues to have a very positive view of the United States. Chavez’s rants against Bush may cost him over there as well as here.