Raising Their Voices in Outrage

09/22/06

After sitting in a week-long stupor while Republicans debated how much torture would be permissable under U.S. law, Democratic members of Congress aroused yesterday to express their outrage -- at the mean things that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is saying about their president.

"You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district and criticize my president," Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel told reporters.

Speaking before the United Nations, Chavez called President Bush "the devil" and the "genocide president" among other things. He repeated his devil remark the next day on a visit to Rangel's district.

Rangel was not alone among Democrats in sticking up for the president. Not to be outdone, Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Chavez "an everyday thug" who had ``demeaned himself, and he demeaned Venezuela.''

I appreciate that Chavez may have offended the Democrats' sensibilities with his rude remarks. But why then are the same Democrats not offended by the much ruder actions applied repeatedly by George W. Bush's CIA, actions he now wants them to codify into law?

If the Democrats are unable to take a stand against the codification in law of the immoral actions of torture -- actions by the way that have never been proven to produce any of the essential intelligence the president insists it does -- what are they willing to take a stand on?

Oh yes, I forgot: Hugo Chavez. He is a very mean man.