'I Want To Be Your Friend'

Considering Barack Obama is friends with all sorts of miscreants, why not add one more to the stable? Besides, they both count Bill Ayers as a friend. Who knows, if Hugo plays his cards right, he'll be invited over for hots dogs next Saturday.

Venezuela and the United States moved to end a bitter diplomatic spat that entangled both countries last year, signaling a thaw in Washington's relationship with one of its fiercest opponents in South America.

Patrick Duddy, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela who was expelled by President Hugo Chavez last year, is expected to return to Caracas, while Bernardo Alvarez, who was serving as Venezuela's envoy to Washington when the quarrel erupted, will return to his post.

The administration of President Barack Obama has expressed its desire to improve relations, "and we're willing to move forward," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said in an official statement Wednesday.

"It's a clear attempt to improve the relations between both countries," said Michael Shifter, a vice president at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. "It's a logical step."

The bad blood between Chavez and Washington reached a boiling point last September, when the fiery former paratrooper expelled Duddy "in solidarity" with Bolivia, which had told a top U.S. diplomat in La Paz to leave for allegedly supporting separatists in the Andean nation's eastern provinces. Bolivia has yet to re-establish diplomatic ties with the U.S.

Chavez had often accused the Bush administration of plotting against him, repeatedly called the former U.S. president a "donkey" and famously referred to him as "the devil" at the United Nation's General Assembly in 2006.

Bush administration officials had often charged that the Venezuelan government had abetted, if not aided, Colombian terrorist groups, and said Chavez was growing increasingly authoritarian at home.

Since coming to power in January, President Obama has sought to improve relations with Venezuela, a top oil exporter to the U.S. A turning point in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship came in April, when Obama and Chavez shook hands and smiled in Trinidad and Tobago during a regional heads-of-state gathering. During their encounter, Chavez said to Obama, "I want to be your friend."

The statement was seen as a major change in the Venezuelan leader, who usually deploys anti-U.S. rhetoric for political gain and to defend his socialist-inspired policies.

Since coming to power a decade ago, Chavez has spearheaded a wave of leftist leaders in the region who are openly critical of Washington, including Bolivia's Evo Morales.

Now he's got a leftist leader in Washington who's openly critical of the United States. They should get along swimmingly.

Meanwhile, Barack's new pal is lining up with the psychopathic "president" of Iran.

Today Mr Ahmadinejad struck back and accused the US President of following his predecessor's lead.

"Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things. Our question is why he fell into this trap, and said things that previously (former President) Bush used to say," Mr Ahmadinejad said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela who is an ally of Mr Ahmadinejad, added: "People are in the streets, some are dead, they have snipers, and behind this is the CIA, the imperial hand of European countries and the United States."

Sounds like a guy we want to have a relationship with, no?