Happily, the Organization of American States wisely rejected a Team Bush proposal for a permanent cadre of “Democracy Commissars” for the Western Hemisphere.

However, we have not heard the last from this administration, its lickspittles and acolytes about the potentially unstable Latin America of Hugo Chavez, Nestor Kirchner and Ivo Morales. The Latins are not behaving properly, not minding their masters from El Norte, and are generally being uppity. Don’t they know there’s a global democratic revolution going on?In a piece earlier this week, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl (an ignoramus whose resemblance to Woodrow Wilson is frightening and who writes about Latin America like a man on retainer to the United Fruit Company) warned us again about the “evils” of anti-Americanism and undemocratic governance skulking across South America. Like the elite simpleton he is, Diehl equates mere anti-American sentiment (which Latin America has earned) with undemocratic governance. And he clearly wants Team Bush to do something about it:

Bush, meanwhile, finds himself confounded by a familiar Latin conundrum: Direct U.S. intervention, however benign, risks regional rejection as Yanqui imperialism. But even the governments that secretly share Bush’s anxieties resist standing up on their own — partly out of deference to the region’s tradition of nonintervention, partly because of their disgruntlement with Bush’s first-term policies and partly because they covet a slice of Chavez’s growing pile of petrodollars.

I don’t know that Chavez is throwing around his poorly accounted-for petrollars willy nilly, unlike say, the way USAID or DoD money is tossed around. Nor do I see much evidence for the Venezuelan “subversion” Dielh is convinced is going on. But backbone is needed to deal with “undemocratic” governments, Diehl writes.

What kind of awful, tyrannical place has Chavez’s Venezuela become? Diehl quotes Marina Corina Machado, an opposition leader and “37-year-old single mother,” who says:

“But Chavez doesn’t need to close newspapers in order to force people to censor themselves. He doesn’t need thousands of political prisoners if he can make examples of a few people in every sector of society, a labor leader here, a journalist there. And he doesn’t need to cancel elections if he can use his appointees to change the rules so that the voting can be easily manipulated. It is a terrific facade, but inside is an atmosphere of total control and fear. Traveling around the country, as I do, it’s shocking to see how frightened people are about what the government can do to their lives.”

Hmm. That could just as easily describe George W. Bush’s America, too.

The Best of Charles H. Featherstone