World Leader Smack Down

Some of you may have read about the interesting political smack down between King Juan Carlos of Spain and the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez was making some derogatory remarks about the former right-wing Prime Minister of Spain and the King leaned over and basically told him to "shut up."

This situation is fascinating because it makes me more aware of a common scenario in politics that often drives me crazy. Most Conservatives in the US will say Chavez is a lunatic with a fringe agenda and a motor mouth who doesn't know when to quit. A great number of Liberals, or Leftists will say that Chavez has some redeeming qualities especially when compared to President Bush. Either way, both parties try to play the game in such a way that they minimize the risk of embarrassment by their favored, and try to exploit the other side to maximize the embarrassment or failure.

In either case, the leaders from both sides are given free passes by their supporters because they stand for what these people believe in. This is precisely the problem. Why is it that when Hugo Chavez makes an ass of himself and is rightly put in his place, that some people will defend him simply because they agree with his politics? Why is it that Pat Robertson can support Rudy Giuliani (a decidedly not right-wing Conservative) because he is a Republican? This is fascinating to me.

Here we have a political reality that condemns truth in favor of what wins. This is the absolute epitome of the lust for power and it is an equal reality whatever person you support. All you have to do is look at someone like Tom Delay to see how the demand for power supercedes his supposed moral credentials or the ethical truths he supposedly stands for. In exactly the same way, all you have to do is look at the damnable excuses thrown out to justify revolutionary leftist movements soaked in the blood of the masses. The slavenly lust for power is just so amazing to watch from every corner.

I sometimes wonder why I am an independent when it comes to politics. Even more than an independent though, why I am fiercely opposed to standing in one platform against another. And then I look at the excuses, the rationalizations, the corruptible, wanton, slovenly lust for power...

In the apocryphal words of Martin Luther "Here I stand, I can do no other."