Obama defends greeting Hugo Chavez

From the LA Times.

Rebuffing criticism of the warm greetings he exchanged with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, President Obama said Sunday that the United States, with its overwhelming military superiority and need to improve its global image, could afford to extend such diplomatic "courtesy."

In a news conference capping a three-day meeting of leaders from the Western Hemisphere, Obama also said the U.S. must engage other countries through humanitarian gestures, not only military intervention.

Obama said it would be a mistake to measure the Summit of the Americas by the specific agreements reached. By listening to his counterparts and eschewing heavy-handed diplomacy, he said, he was creating an atmosphere in which, "at the margins," foreign leaders are "more likely to want to cooperate than not cooperate."

A running theme of the summit was Obama's cordial dealings with Chavez, who once called former President George W. Bush the "devil" and who last month dismissed Obama as an "ignoramus." The two were photographed smiling and clasping hands.

At one meeting, Chavez made a show of walking around the table as the cameras rolled and handing Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America," a 1971 book by Eduardo Galeano chronicling U.S. and European imperialism in the region.

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, appearing on CNN on Sunday, said it was "irresponsible" for Obama to be seen "laughing and joking" with the Venezuelan president.

Obama dismissed such concerns. He said the 2008 presidential campaign proved that American voters want the president to engage with his counterparts, whether or not they are avowed friends of the U.S.

He said it "was a nice gesture to give me a book. I'm a reader." The president added that the election was a referendum of sorts on the argument that U.S. solicitude toward foreign leaders could be seen as "weakness."

"The American people didn't buy it," Obama said. "And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it, because it doesn't make sense."

The U.S. has nothing to fear from Venezuela, a large supplier of crude oil to the country, Obama said.

"Its defense budget is probably 1/600th of the U.S.," he said. "They own [the oil company] Citgo. It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States."

It's like deja vu all over again.


Back then, they told us that he didn't really mean it, that he understood the threat that Iran poses. What will the excuse be this time? Venezuela is best buddies with Iran, Russia, Cuba and Ecuador, all of whom are openly hostile to the United States. How utterly pathetic that we have a man in the White House who is so unimaginative that he cannot envision a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis. How ridiculous that he could assume that the mere force of his engaging personality could suddenly change decades of hostile interactions...particularly when they are openly stating that the hostilities remain. How much of an existential threat to the future of this nation does this buffoon intend to be?