Thanks to Naiman for catching Hillary, echoing Bush, in mis-characterizing Chavez. He may be a leftist, he may have questionable judgment in some of his statements, but he is absolutely a legitimate, elected leader.

Hillary will be worse than Bush - she is ultimately corruptible, and smarter. This speech was not the first time she has made reference to a Venezuelan dictatorhsip - she did in one of the first 'debates.' What prompts the language? Total control by the corporatists who run the government, and have obviously already bought and paid for her campaign.

Notice she didn't get much union support? Wonder why?

Notice she hasn't gotten the support of the more highly educated women? Wonder why?

Notice her campaign is run by lobbyists and corporate sponsors? Wonder why?

A legitimate, elected leader, who by all accounts is also a dictator. He has friendly relations with a lot of people who dislike America and he himself is quite hostile to us in general. He is a lot like Geroge Bush and I don't consider that a compliment.

In a major speech yesterday at George Washington University, Sen. Clinton drove the wedge [with Sen. Obama] deeper: "If I am entrusted with the presidency, America will have the courage, once again, to meet with our adversaries. But I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions; until we have assessed, through lower-level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of these dictators."

I would freeze in hell before I voted for someone who said this. (In other words, the never of never trumps a Hillary vote in my book.)

Fuck off, Hillary - Chavez was elected president, which is more than you can say.

Mark Penn may want to disclose his relationship with Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe. That may go a long way to explaining Sen. Clinton's choice of words.

Hillary has been called "Bush Lite". Thank goodness she is doing so poorly. Chavez is not perfect, but he is no dictator and has the overwhelming support of his people and the last time I looked Bush was around 20%.Chavez is a threat to big oil and the corpratocracy,so naturally corporate soldiers like Hillary demonize him.

This "not without preconditions" crap is something she learnt from the Israelis. How else is the American empire to keep itself on the "good" side of the good/evil binary? Smooth move, Hill.

She plays to the ignorance she assumes we all are victims of.
Clinton's political ambitions are such a priority that she sacrifices everything, exploits anything, denies anyone, destroys alternatives, denies hope, panders to the low road, embraces the status quo for the security of convention and generally stands in the way, if not helping those who would block the road.

As with all other persons in the power elite, either lying or incredibly stupid.

This is rich:

"A legitimate, elected leader, who by all accounts is also a dictator. He has friendly relations with a lot of people who dislike America and he himself is quite hostile to us in general. He is a lot like Geroge Bush and I don't consider that a compliment"

Mark Penn is not a "go between" to Uribe. There is a DIRECT connection between Mr. Bill and that gawd awful dictator.

As for Ms. Clinton, she is unqualified to serve a prez because she refuses to recognize democratically elected leaders around the world. It's all about the oil and corporate profits folks.

Does anybody know what Obama's take is on Chavez?

Once I was on Hardball and Norah O'Donnell was filling in for Matthews.

When she introduced me she said that I had met with "Communist dictator, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela." Then we went to commercial break. I said:

"You know that Chavez is not communist, nor is he a dictator."

She said: "Yeah, we had a lot of discussion about that, but we decided to call him that anyway." Then the conversation had to turn to me educating her and the public about how Chavez is overwhelmingly loved by his people (this was the summer of '06) and he had been faced elections and recalls that were certified by international observers. We don't let in observers to observe our corrupt elections.

It is a concerted attempt to smear people who don't surrender to the corporate imperialism of America.

Hillary Clinton is a lot of things, but she is not stupid. She knew exactly what she was saying.

Cindy

Clinton is a neo-con/AIPAC loser. I hope Obama can make a break with the DLC/Clinton position (which is not different from the McCain/Bush position.

If he can't we'll watch the country go down the tubes--all brought to you by the oligarchy that couldn't shoot straight.

Hillary will lie to get votes. Obama doesn't say anything that would lose him votes. Take your pick.

see: http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/

Has Hillary's statements been independently confirmed? I don't trust the Wall Street Journal when it comes to reporting anything related to Venezuela.

Thank you Cindy,
America needs you, and your voice in our Congress.
cindyforcongress.org.
Change America or lose America, It's our choice.

I don't know, Cindy, they are always repeating how *smart* Hillary is so it will be the conventional thinking, but circumstances have revealed her to be not so smart as calculating and sometimes her ambitious formula--since it is built upon construction rather than truth doesn't stand up as the wheel turns. What are we basing her smartness on anyway--gaming the system? Seems to be backfiring on her.
Can't say I feel sorry for her loss. I see it as our gain if the door closes on the Bush-Clinton era.

That worthless human trash, such as is Hillary Clinton and all like her who have no moral values, will continue to try and demonize the good people in the world society who are trying to create a better world where Human Rights predominate. That is because they, with their inside knowledge, can foresee that their evil system is losing geopolitical ground to the socialist values which are percolating in the Latin American nations and they fear that such good examples will eventually intrude into their own indentured slavery societies. Such radical change would precipitate the loss of their undeserved privilages and that would mean that (a real shock doctrine) those unworthys who cannot produce anything intellectual would actually have to get a job.

"He has friendly relations with a lot of people who dislike America and he himself is quite hostile to us in general."

Unfriendly = dictator?

It is exactly this type of demonization of those who oppose/dislike the U.S. that has empowered those in control of our country to establish the policy of 'preemptive war'.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-22-robertson-_x.htm

Pat Robertson calls for assassination of Hugo Chavez
VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." -- and there are better examples than using Pat Robertson out there in the press.

No wonder he dislikes us.

Restive, I'm with you on your assessment of her preconditions on meeting with our "adversaries". She has a controlling streak a mile wide. That's also why she has not adapted well to the changing primary. Controlling people are also quite rigid, and that simply spells more trouble for our country if she were to be elected. She is smart in a workmanlike way, but there are no transcendent leaps of intelligence fused with understanding the whole. Her rigidity makes that impossible.

did hillar mean, that if the motivations and intentions of a 'dictator' , as assessed by lower level diplomats, is good, then they are acceptable to us?
democracy does not matter? is her position the declared position of the us?
should musharraf have been on this list?
are abolute monarchs also dictators?

In the Ohio debate on Tuesday, near the end, Senator Clinton said the candidates could have discussed the "retreat from democracy" in Latin America. What is this? Popular democracy is increasing across South America. Chavez in Venezuela has the support of over 60 percent of the population. President George Bush in the United States had 19 percent approval in the latest poll.

The USA should get behind Ralph Nader in my opinion.

Maybe Hillary thought it was okay to lie about Chavez being a dictator because the scum at late night talk shows such as David Letterman consistently lie to their audiences that he is a dictator.

re: "Retreat from democracy" in Latin America? Holy crap. If she believes that she has completely lost any credibility she had left.

I didn't say that Hillary wasn't "calculating"
But I do believe she is smart...that's why her statements are
even more disturbing to me. She knows as well as you and I that
Chavez is not a "dictator."

She was for NAFTA before she was "against" it. Corporate colonizing
of South America by US has been going on for centuries and now
popular democratic movements are rising up against this...so in our
"American Exceptionalism" if you aren't "for US" you are "against US"

Hi...Little Brother
;)
Cindy

I can't wait to hear her commentary on the democratically elected Palestinian government.

And how the majority of Israelis(including Sderot) want to take advantage of the offer to negotiate long proffered by Hamas to end the cycle of violence.

I wonder what preconditions she would need.

I said Ms. Clinton was either lying or incredibly stupid. It has to be one or the other. I can't believe she is ignorant of the history of the US in Central and South America.

Latin America is already lost to the imperialists. They are trying to hold on there as long as they can, such as with their war against the socialists in Columbia, but they, the same as every other pragmatist, know that they are losing ideological ground as the forces of humanity assert themselves among the peoples who reside in the areas of conflict.

The forces of evil on this planet, which is to say the capitalists and their phoney "democracy" sycophantic governments, are going to be expunged from world society. It is not a question of merely "when" but "how soon".

Hillary is a demented amoral rabid hyena foaming at the mouth while spinning in circles chasing her own rhetorical tail !

She is just another American illusion !

I wish Chavez would hurry up and build the Kalashnikov factory he has been talking about and start producing assault rifles for distribution to all freedom fighters.

As we found out in Nam and now in Iraq, it is impossible for high-tech imperialists to defeat a determined guerilla resistance.

I don't think she is smart.
She is a politician and as it turns out, not a very good one. In fact, she is starting to ring Nixonian with the dark, resentful, jealous glares, the scortched earth policies, the transparent cheating, the brazen, manipulative lying.
Obama is a smarter politician - more talented, polished Hillary by comparison is leaden, dull, flat.
Maybe she is smarter than Bush but that isn't saying much and even with his approval ratings down to 19% what he worry? Hillary isn't smart enough to stop him--or even smart enough to know that she should apparently, but maybe smart enough to think that running against his party would be easier now that he has been allowed to make such a mess of everything.

Maybe she thought she was smart, in a recent debate, when she humbled herself with sacherine platitudes before the wounded soldiers in the VA hospital. Yet no one thought to point out to she-whose-heart-was-bleeding that her actions put them there.

I love Chavez (despite his "loose cannon" of a mouth at times), and I HATE Clinton. AWFUL, awful, awful, AWFUL!!!! Clinton is beneath contempt. We had 8 years of Reagan (AWFUL!!!!); then 4 years of Bush 1 (terrible, appalling); then 8 years of Mr. Bill (oh nooooooo!!!! it's mr. "NAFTA" bill); then 8 years of easily the WORST lying, stinking sack of shit to ever walk the face of the earth as prez Bush 2. How anybody, deemed sane, could have the sheer stupidity to want Billary Clinton for president is beyond stupid. It's pure shit-fer-brains stoooopid. It reminds me of all the idiots who were so f*cking dumb they actually voted for Bush in 2004, after those first 4 disasterous years. That was a defining moment for me: I then realized how hopelessly beyond help stupid your everyday American voter is. Please, please...I know it's hard not to be stupid...but do something good for your country for once: vote for Obama. But back to Chavez: this guy totally RAWKS!!! Giving millions of gallons of heating oil to poor Americans, and actively implementing numerous government plans to feed, clothe, educate and care for Venezuela's poor. What's wrong with that? Nothing. It's beautiful. When's the last time our government did anything like this? America giving away heating oil to the poor and needy abroad, let alone here at home? Don't make me laugh. It will never happen. Can't remember, eh? Yep. Little wonder Clinton is just regurgitating the beltway dem/republican party line. She's a hopeless idiot riding on Bill's coattails. America hates Chavez because he makes the U.S. federal government and our quack presidents look like the greedy corporate scrooge-scum they truly are. That's the long and short of it.

Does Chavez have a loose cannon mouth because he tells the truth or because he doesn't follow our dear leader's script?

Good points by many. I really liked what jmacneil wrote. And it is nice to see Cindy Sheehan here.

I think Hillary may have been so deeply embedded in the oligarchy for so long that she equates going along with the Washington Consensus as following democracy (I would guess almost everyone here understands that Chavez is doing all he can to lead the rest of South America away from the Washington Consensus). For the truly committed like her, "democracy" long ago lost any connection with the wishes or the welfare of the great majority of the people, but means something like the wishes and the welfare of the corporate elite. I agree with Cindy Sheehan that Hillary is very bright, but that she is just plain on the other side, the side of the oligarchy.

I bet when Hillary thinks about it she recognizes that the modern "free trade" agreements and the Washington Consensus on trade, along with the rest of neoliberalism, is really a form of neocolonialism, designed to distract, confuse, and fool enough people to sufficiently lower resistance to allow for predatory behavior of historical proportions by US corporate elites. And that is fine with her, as long as such corporate elites can put her in the White House.

Bush was not elected. He stole the election x2.

Chavez was elected. Plus, he was brought back by popular demand when a US backed coup kidnapped him and abolished the constitution and the assembly.

Chavez doesn't hate "us", as in Americans. He doesn't put up with exploitation of US oil companies, or attempted coups, or threatened assassination.

Quit equating the interests of the US ruling class with those of we the people.

And for those who believe that there is a difference between the Dems and Repubs, look at Clinton's words.

"We create our own reality" and the Dems and the Repubs both follow the party line. That's because they are two wings of the same party, the corporate party.

Thank you so much, Cindy! What you said very, very revealing about how US policy elites and the media determine who are democrats and who are dictators. Such determinations are not made by measuring a leader's practices at home, but rather his/her loyalty to US interests. Discrediting democratically-elected leaders as "dictators," "semi-authoritarian," "illiberal democrats," etc. is a conscious effort to confuse and deceive (lie)and justify aggression. In 1954, the US refused to acknowledge Arbenz as the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala and dismissed his victory at the poll as a "fluke." In 1970, the US used covert operations to prevent Salvador Allende from taking the office he rightfully won in elections that even the US acknowledged were free and fair. After Allende took office, Nixon and Kissinger willfully ignored their own intelligence that showed democracy continued to be vibrant and healthy under President Allende. From 1984-1990, the Reagan administration dismissed the Sandinista victory at the polls in Nicaragua as a "sham election" despite the fact that over 500 observers from Latin America, Europe, and North America deemed the elections free and fair. What happened in each case? Massive US covert operations that produce hell in all three countries. The biggest mistake made by leaders and many people in Latin America is that they think the US will treat them as equals and respect their decisions if their governments are democratic. The historical record clearly demonstrates otherwise.

Hillary and her advisors keep shooting her(self)in both feet -- for me, she hasn't got a leg to stand on. If she were the only candidate running she would never get my vote, not in this lifetime.

Paul Revere, you hit the nail right on its head.

On and on and on goes the anti-Hillary hate mail. You imbeciles have no limits do you? The stupidity of your attacks is so patent, so palatable that a mere glance at the facts make you look like the adolescent goons you are. Answer this simple question. If Hillary is so "evil," so "stupid," why did she maintain a vast lead over all the other candidates for 8 months? Is there one Hillary hater with enough brains to answer that question? I doubt it. Your stupidity is appalling. Where did you get "everything" you think you know about Hillary? You got it from media, didn't you, you pathetic frauds, you hate filled adolescents. You got it from the same mainstream media that you're constantly telling each other, transmits nothing but lies and distortions to the American people. The same media that is supposed to fill all of you with such contempt and cynicism. Your hypocrisy is the only thing that equals your stupidity. Who sold you, in just the last couple of months, on the idea that Hillary is the devil? Wasn't it media? Do you know what laughable asses you are. Do you have any idea how stupid you look to anyone that has a sense of fairness? Rove, together with his slavish media, have brought you down, with nothing more than a succession of a few newspaper articles, a few phoney media polls, and a few BS TV news programs. That's all it took to manipulate your pale and bankrupt thought processes. You deserve Obama. A morally and ethically and intellectually bankrupt black candidate, to replace a morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt white president. You win, suckers.

Oh dear. Well, you can bet so is Obama - so if this is supposed to suggest St Barack would embrace Chavez, think again. No western politician prepared to implicitly question the dogmas of capitalism would ever be allowed to stand for office, let alone take it. See Cuba, if you get penetrate the vicious propaganda smoke spewed by the west around it. For a real alternative to Hillary, don't look to the even more conformist and corporate-fawning Obama. Look to Kucinich, and contribute to his campaign to stay in Congress. There are far too few honest politicians in the US to lose even one.

Hillary has never impressed me as being particularly smart or truthful.

"Chavez = dictator" is 1984-speak, like "nuclear missile = peacekeeper", or "support the troops = send them to die." If we are demented enough to elect Hillary, we should expect US attacks on Venezuela in the name of "restoring democracy". We'll be "supporting our troops" by sending them to die for Latin American oil. War is peace, isn't it? (I wish Cindy were were on the ballot. Maybe then we could go back to peacekeeper = Peace Keeper. Someday...)

Some of the outspoken conservative Republicans (i.e. Coulter and Cunningham) who can't throw their support behind McCain are throwing it behind Hillary. That should be a warning sign there.

Venezuela's Chavez and Haiti's Aristide, elected in fair elections, are the enemies of America and democracy.

Selected George Bush, not elected by the will of the people TWICE, and now Hillary, are the ones that the mainstream media and people quote as to what is acceptable under democracy.

I thought this only happened in Bizzaro land. We've passed by George Orwell a long time ago.

It is easier to fall asleep than to wake up. America has fallen asleep a long time ago.

so it goes...

DEIBOLD = Dictatorships Elected Illegally By Official Lying and Deceit

Cheney put the "dick" in dictatorship...

Have you ever noticed how Bush and Hillary are never seen together? Its because Hillary is just Bush in drag.

JohnCPT ---- I agree that the exhuberance of the anti-Hillary sentiment is a bit over the top.

However, in answer to your question, the reason why she held such a lead for 8 months was purely because of name recognition. As people become more informed about the candidates, they tend to move their support towards Obama.

Hillary is part of the corporatist problem that IS our leadership in the US. Bet she didn't mention that Chavez offered to sell our country, every day, 250,000 barrels of oil per day for $50/barrel if we locked it in a contract. Guess our STUPID leaders thought this was a bad deal. Now they buy 250,000 barrels per day at $100 per barrel, costing us $12.5 million more per day. That, in my books, makes Chavez a lot smarter than the morons who lead our country.

Say what you want about Chavez, but under his leadership, literacy, life expecatancy, and access to health care have all IMPROVED. Because we elect MORONS to lead our country, during that same time our country has declined in these measures of social performance. I'd take a "dictator" like Chavez over a MORON like Bush any day.

johncpt wrote:
"On and on and on goes the anti-Hillary hate mail. You imbeciles have no limits do you? The stupidity of your attacks is so patent, so palatable that a mere glance at the facts make you look like the adolescent goons you are."

A little respect please Johncpt, you don't own the truth. American Indians love Hugo Chavez because he represents a strong tilt in favor of Indigenous People and values. He was elected and calling him a dictator just lost Hill Girl most of her American Indian vote. I just sent this out on the ndn telegraph and it will spread across this country in a day. FYI, Chavez has given heating oil to over two hundred tribes in the U.S. many of whose citizens had been reduced to burning their clothes to stay warm. Are the ndn's in Texas and Ohio? Yah, there are lots of us there.

I would be honored to meet a person like Hugo Chavez. I have the utmost respect for him. He stands up to the US and that just drives Hillary and all the neoconservatives crazy. As for Hillary, I wouldn't pay two cents to be around such trash.