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[Guest guest]

" Robertson is rather mad dog with rabies " , Chavez says

 

" This is not the policy of the United States government, " McCormack

said. " We do not share his views. "

 

There's an old Southern saying that you dance with the one that

brung you, but as the Bush administration found out this week,

sometimes you don't want to dance too closely.

 

The administration of President George W. Bush quickly distanced

itself Tuesday from the suggestion by religious broadcaster and Bush

backer Pat Robertson that the United States assassinate a leftist

Latin American head of state.

 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks

about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez " inappropriate, " but stopped

short of condemning them.

 

" This is not the policy of the United States government, " McCormack

said. " We do not share his views. "

 

Robertson backs Bush

 

The Bush administration does share many of Robertson's views on

other matters, such as stem cell research, and Robertson's largely

conservative, evangelical audience overlaps with the core of Bush's

political base.

 

About nine of 10 white evangelicals voted for Bush in the 2004

election - about as high as his support from any group of voters,

according to exit polls.

 

This group also supported Bush overwhelmingly in the 2000 election.

 

McCormack tiptoed around the question of whether the rest of the

world might assume that Robertson speaks, if not directly for Bush,

at least for a sizeable share of the Republican Party.

 

" I would think that people around the world would take the comments

for what they are, " McCormack said. " They're the expression of one

citizen. "

 

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for

the Republican nomination for president in 1988, supported Bush's re-

election last year and said he believed God blesses Bush. Robertson

also told viewers of his " 700 Club " television program that God had

told him Bush would win re-election in a " blow-out. "

 

Cheaper that starting a war

 

Speaking on the same program Monday, Robertson said killing Chavez

would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of

Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a " launching pad for

communist influence and Muslim extremism, " Robertson said.

 

" We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come

that we exercise that ability, " Robertson said. " We don't need

another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm

dictator. "

 

Chavez, speaking to reporters at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montego

Bay, Jamaica, compared Robertson and other vocal critics of his

government to the " rather mad dogs with rabies " that chased after

the main characters in " Don Quixote " the classic novel by Miguel de

Cervantes.

 

Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon isn't in the

business of killing foreign leaders, but he also did not denounce

Robertson or his remarks. " He's a private citizen. Private citizens

say all kinds of things all the time, " Rumsfeld said.

 

Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, said of

Robertson's remarks: " We are concerned about the safety of the

president. "

 

Alvarez said measures should be taken to guarantee Chavez's safety

any time he visits the United States.

 

The Venezuelan leader is expected to attend the special session of

the UN General Assembly next month in New York.

 

Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have been linking

Chavez with Cuban leader Fidel Castro as destabilising troublemakers

in teetering Latin American democracies.

 

En route home from visits earlier this month to Paraguay and Peru,

Rumsfeld told reporters, " There certainly is evidence that both Cuba

and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in

unhelpful ways. "

 

" Mr. Danger "

 

Chavez, who was democratically elected, routinely criticises Bush

and the United States. He calls Bush " Mr. Danger " while Secretary of

State Condoleezza Rice is " the imperial lady. "

 

He has repeatedly accused the United States of backing a plan to

assassinate him, which Rice and others have denied. Earlier this

year he threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States if it

supports any effort to overthrow him.

 

That is not an inconsequential threat when gas prices are brushing

$3 a gallon.

 

Venezuela exports 1.3 million barrels of oil a day to the United

States - 8 percent of the total supply.

 

The United States has accused Chavez of behaving undemocratically,

but Rice was careful not to call him any names during a Latin

American trip this year.

 

 

a blinding flash

hotter than the sun

dead bodies lie across the path

the radiation colors the air

finishing one by one