Caracas Chronicles

Is it just me, or have Chavez’s lunatic outbursts been getting exponentially weirder? Yesterday, Chávez ripped brutally into Peruvian presidential candidate Alan García – calling him corrupt, a thief, and vowing to break diplomatic relations with Peru if he wins the election.

Showing for the Nth time that he doesn’t grasp the fact that “Hugo Chavez” and “the Venezuelan State” are not synonyms, he said “if García wins, I will withdraw my ambassador” (not Venezuela’s ambassador, mind you, or our ambassador, no: my ambassador.)

He capped off his unhinged little rant with a stirring “¡Viva Humala!”

(Of course, between you and me, there’s no question that Alan Garcia is a derranged charlatan. Hey, that’s ok for me to say, and for you to say, and for a drunk at a bar to say, but not for a damn foreign head of state to say!)

In the last seven days, then, Chavez has decided it’s his job to tell the Colombians how to run their trade policy and the Peruvians who they should elect president. Charming!

This is all enormously fresh from the guy who blows a gasket any time anyone anywhere makes any comment that could even obliquely be seen as in some way impinging on Venezuelan sovereignty. Meddling, I suppose, only violates sovereignty when the bad guys do it: when Chavez does it, it’s revolutionary solidarity.