In what can only be considered a precursor to an attempt to establish a Castro like dictatorship, Hugo Chavez is moving toward amending Venezuela’s Constitution to remove a term limit restriction which present prevents him from serving as President for life. It appears that the chances are good that he’ll get what he wants. No doubt there will be howls of protests from Republicans here, who will rightfully see it for what it is. Unfortunately, to a large extent, it’s a case of pots and kettles.
In this country we have seen a pattern of deification of Republican presidents by their followers, with talk, while they are in office, or relieving them from the two term limit that the Republicans passed in reaction to Roosevelt. We see the deification in the persistent attempts to add them to Mount Rushmore. There was talk at one point of putting Nixon up there, and persistent talk of adding Reagan. As I recall, that talk was scotched only when someone from the Park Service testified that there was no room for another president. Apparently it didn’t occur to anyone that they could transform say, Jefferson, into Reagan.
There was also talk of lifting the term limit restriction for Reagan, something he supported (allegedly for future presidents only). I invite consideration of an alternate world in which Bush’s unholy foray into Iraq had succeeded. The Republicans so eager to keep their distance now would be beating the drum to allow the man who would be dictator to continue to “serve”. The only thing that has saved us from that sorry fate is Bush’s utter incompetence, something from which Chavez apparently does not suffer. Even as it is, we have the hallmarks of at least a temporary dictatorship in Bush’s recent behavior, e.g., executive privilege for anyone connected with Bush, See, again e.g., the Republican National Committee’s recent refusal to comply with a subpoena from Congress because the White House might make the utterly bogus claim that documents in its possession are subject to executive privilege. That claim, if allowed by our compliant courts, would effectively condone the merger of a political party with the government (good only when the president is Republican), something that Bush has already done in practice. It would also effectively enable a president to immunize anyone and everyone from Congressional scrutiny.
We’ve avoided, so far, Venezuela’s coming fate, but there’s no reason to think we are immune. Bush’s abuses will harden into precedents, ready for re-use by the next Republican president. The two-term limit will be scant protection from the ever encroaching Republican executive. Yet another reason why the Democrats must come up with a way to strike back at Bush while he is still in office. The most effective way would seem to be the use of the inherent contempt power to put Karl and Harriet in jail. They don’t need any Republican help to take that step.
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