Strange bedfellows in the news: Condoleezza Rice meets "Che" Hector Lopez

I am always impressed when destiny bing to the front pages an unlikely pair. Yesterday and today brought us two contrasts in style difficult to match.

Sunday it was the inauguration of the new Major at Large (literally) of Caracas, Juan Barreto. In a rare ecumenical ceremony, all the mayors of the 5 Caracas districts sat together duly dressed up for the occasion. That included of course Baruta’s Capriles who served a 3 months jail sentence without sentence and without trial, and Chacao’s Lopez cited the next day for his role on April 12, quickly dismissing any positive image of reconciliation and dialogue that the Sunday swearing might have brought to Caracas.

But the real news of the day was the picture featured in the front page of El Nacional. A dashing recreation of the "Che" Guevara stands behind the sitting and decked up mayors, a dashing representation of our fleeting institutionality.



Humberto Lopéz, his name according to an accompanying article, has cultivated for years his resemblance to the famous Argentinean who ended his life in the Bolivian jungles. But Lopéz’s jungle is the concrete of Caracas where he states without any embarrassment that he is “unemployed but employed by the revolution”. Indeed his striking figure has been seen in more than one difficult street scene, quite often not too far from Lina Ron, a pasionaria of sorts herself. It seems that it is easy for him to say that he has 5 kids from one woman but lives with another woman, has not held a steady job for quite a while, lives of handoffs from “comrades” and the odd job, and stopped schooling after elementary school because the teachers only spoke “nonsense”. Truly a symbol of a pseudo revolution unable to create original characters, new cultural movements, or showing creativity of any kind. Yep, a symbol of the hanger-on that found a way to live off the bolivarian revolution. Little more than an Elvis impersonator without the charm.

On the other side today’s news brought us the nomination of Condoleezza Rice for the Secretary of State job that Colin Powell is leaving. There is a picture too.



It is rather striking to find a very conservative president with the two African Americans that will have occupied the highest position in the US history short of president. After this appointment, and let’s not forget Clinton’s appointment of Madeline Albright to the same job, now it will be normal for a woman and/or an African American to occupy all jobs but the presidency (for the time being). A real revolution if you ask me, no matter what US side of the political spectrum one espouses. No one in Venezuela, black or white, male or female, has such a job with real responsibilities in Venezuela. El Supremo makes sure that he is the only one who decides in his revolution.

And speaking of El Supremo. He must be wondering about his loose tongue when in January he called the next US Secretary of State of ignorant and illiterate. Even as a friendly Web site tried to put the best possible spin on that sorry moment. Really, calling the Provost of Stanford University for 6 years ignorant and illiterate... I remember when I wrote on that that a Liberal friend of mine wrote me to say that she did "not agree with Condi Rice but I certainly would not call her illiterate". Goes to tell you! Certainly Dr. Rice will not have forgotten and a recent interview, also very criticized by the Venezuelan government, indicates that this is such a possibility. Does anyone know how the US operates in the Venezuelan foreign ministry? Heck! I am willing to consult for them for free just to spare my country such embarrassments!

And thus we have one day apart the non symbols of the bolivarian revolutions and the real symbols of US integration, even if slow and painful.