And in this corner... Hugo Chavez! Cha-vez!!!

Is it just me, or does the United States ONLY have a problem with countries that sit atop oil?

Better yet, does President Bush ONLY have a problem with countries that sit atop oil?

Now, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleeza Rice are at each others throats. She has publicly called him one of "the biggest problems" for democracy in the western hemisphere. She has also called him a "menace to regional democracy."

Now, I don't know much about Mr. Chavez - except for the fact that he won a landslide democratic election in 1998 to become president of Venezuela, the poorest citizens were his biggest supporters, a coup in 2002 had him locked up briefly before he was released and came back into power. Chavez accused the Bush administration of trying to oust him with this coup. But the Bush administration would never do such a thing, Saddam Hussein and Jean Bertrand Aristide not withstanding. Yeah right...

For all I know, Chavez could be a blood-thirsty, perv that drowns kittens on weekends - but all things being equal, he sits at the OPEC table. Venezuela is the 5th largest oil exporter to the United States and I think the Bush administration is laying the groundworks to get him out of power some time in the next 18 months. For his sake, Chavez would be a lot safer if Venezuela's chief export to the United States was maraschino cherries!

All the gamesmanship over oil aside - the thing that bothers The Thinking Black Man the most, is president Bush's insistence on ignoring Kim Jong Ill and North Korea!!! Iran is thinking about maybe trying to consider a plan to look into the possibility of taking a shot at maybe making a nuclear bomb. North Korea already has it! Bush needs to quit trying to marginalize Jong Ill like he's a petty player on the world stage. Like it or not, he holds the ability to start world war three. He has the ability to kill hundreds of thousands of people. The real person that needs the Bush administration attention is not Hugo Chavez, or even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [of Iran] the man of that needs US attention is Kim Jong Ill.

TTBM