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Trent Lott Roasting on an Open Fire…

It’s Christmas, and while I do not usually expect a Senate Majority leader served on the platter, apparently the war within the Senate GOP grows. However, the problem is that while Senate Whip Don Nickels might have had enough votes to pull Lott out of the race…he might have to wait until the day before Congress reconvenes. Which is great... if you are home with nothing to do during the holidays. This awful little melodrama thankfully only has one more card to play and it’s the intriguing one. If Lott is deposed, at some point in the process, he might resign and let a Democrat fill the void. However, many involved parties with the exception of President Bush may be incommunicado until the January 6th date. Lott could shock us like Al Gore, but he's unlikely to resign and go down fighting. Expect major sabre-rattling on both sides, and if Lott goes, don't be surprised if Daschle succeeds him again as Senate Majority leader.

And in case you smelled something burning besides Ol’ Trent…that would be the Venezuelan oil industry. Despite the fact that American media is spending zero time on this issue, it’s arguably a bigger foreign policy issue than Iraq. In fact, the second largest producer of oil to the US is Hugo Chavez’s backyard. While a coup seemed to resolve the problem in April…in fact you now have a huge general strike that has crippled the country. Gasoline prices are going up in the US, which is certain to slow economic growth here. So if we are so willing to bomb Baghdad to resolve things, why not Caracas?

One reason may be that as a democracy, we are disinterested in doing so. The other reason may be is that Bush does not think that there is a landmass south of Mexico or Cuba. But apparently it may be because there is no good answer. It’s not as if Chavez is going to play the role of a South American Qaddafi. It also may be because Powell himself isn’t sure what you are supposed to do, and that despite being preoccupied with that other nation in the Middle East, he has free rein. There were accusations that the US was behind the coup in April, and it’s hard to know what lay ahead if petroleum production reaches a standstill. Of course, even if the US acts, history has shown that in Latin America it prefers more “covert means”.

Incidentially however, Chavez’s rise does relate to certain pandering in the Persian Gulf. As Venezuela too is dependant on the export price of oil, overproduction has hurt the economy ever since export prices collapsed in 1986. It just so happened that instead of producing an Osama bin Laden-style revolutionary, from Venezuela the world got the myrmidon Hugo Chavez.

posted by Thomas at 12:42 AM 0 comments