A "new" Chavez

Somersaults, U-turns, backtracking, these are just some words used by the media have described Chavez's behavior these past few weeks. Whatever word you want to use to describe Chavez's recent behavior it appears that an increasing number of people are finding his socialism of the XXI century a little hard to swallow.

Coming off of the electoral defeat in December, Chavez seems to have lost his step and with the up coming elections in December for governors, mayors, and councilmen ,Chavez and his authoritarianism could be in jeopardy.

So why is Chavez making all these somersaults/backflips/U-turns? The simple answer is because his former VP Jose Vicente Rangel is no longer working in Miraflores. Personally, I never saw a man lie with such a straight face and twist and contort issues all to protect his boss, Rangel was good, real good at protecting Chavez and giving him a good public face. However, now that Rangel is gone Chavez has realized that the minions around him are simply mediocre at best, so he is having twist and contort controversial issues to protect himself. This is costing him he is taking the brunt of controversy, making him seem weaker, and not in tune with the country, not good coming off an electoral loss, worsening economy, increasing unpopularity, and an upcoming election that can pose a significant setback to his presidency.

I have long thought that Chavez has never really been in that much control, Baudel during the last year informed us Chavez rarely attends ministerial meeting. Miguel at Devil's Excrement discusses how Chavez has mostly disowned the recently proposed intelligence bill by referring to the authors as "they", evidently Chavez did not have a role in it but then who are "they"?

As time goes by and as more intellectuals leave the revolution for greener pastures it is becoming self evident that Chavez lacks the intellectual prowess to formulate a revolution, let along govern a country.

Sadly the only thing left surrounding Chavez, and governing and running Venezuela are bunch of mediocre individuals.