Guardian Weighs In On Danny Glover's New Best Friend

Whoever it is that's doctoring the water at al-Guardian, keep up the good work.

The closure of Venezuela's popular, independent television channel RCTV signals a move towards authoritarianism for Hugo Chavez's regime.

I'd call it confirmation, but al-Guardian has taken a step in the right direction.

For the past week Venezuela's streets have filled with rage against the demise of a television channel. Thousands of university students have taken to blowing whistles, banging pots and playing air raid sirens. Barricades have been erected, fires lit and rocks thrown. The police have responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and mass arrests. Around the world, watching the bedlam, governments, commentators and activists have wondered: is President Hugo Chavez crushing free speech?

But . . . but . . . he's a Hero of the Revolution and . . . and . . . he was so-o-o-o nice to Mama Moonbat, too!

It is an explosive question. If the answer is yes, many of the social progressives who embrace the Venezuelan leader as an exciting and charismatic challenger to George Bush would be disillusioned. If the answer is no, they can take heart that their champion's democratic credentials remain intact and that his revolution is on track.

The Chilean senate, the European Union, the US administration and a host of non-governmental organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, have expressed varying degrees of concern about the implications for free speech in Venezuela.

What? No Media Matters? Papa Soros won't allow a second front group to go against Komrade Hugo??

The tens of thousands of people who demonstrated in the capital Caracas and several other cities tended to put it more strongly. "We have to make a stand," a teenage girl shouted in Plaza Brion, her face coated in sweat and grime from a smouldering barricade. "Otherwise we're on the road to communist dictatorship, to Cuba." The staff of RCTV were just as dramatic. "This is the end of democracy in Venezuela," said Moirah Sanchez, a lawyer for the channel.

But just as you begin to believe that al-Guardian is serious about ridding itself of nitwits . . .

But its fate should not be equated with democracy's. Chavez has won three consecutive landslides since being elected in 1998 and remains extremely popular, largely for converting oil revenues into cheap food, free medical care and other social programmes aimed at the poor majority.

Nonetheless, Koslamistan's Propaganda Ministry is silent.

As is the DNC, Shrillary, Obama, Kucinich, Schmuck Schumer and presidential front-runner Ron Paul.