With Chavez Dying, Obama "National Security Team" Preparing to Gloat

Of course, they'll do it in private. But we'll get glimpses of it, in artfully couched terms, in such ruling class rags as the New York Times and Washington Post. The Obama "team" (just another clique of imperialists) will be high-fiveing each other in the Situation Room and so on.

With the cult of Chavez, we see once again the problem with "systems" based on an individual. They're too vulnerable to being as mortal as their namesakes. That can be a good thing- think Hitler and Nazism. And in the case of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, the flaws and pitfalls of the system mirror those of Cuba and Castro- a person with an overweening ego and unrealistically exaggerated sense of their own good judgment making all the decisions. What saved Chavez was oil, and its high price for much of his rule. Too bad more wasn't invested in modernizing their oil industry.

On the plus side, much was done for the poor. And not just in tangible physical benefits. Raising the class consciousness of the poor and uniting and rallying them is a plus. Hopefully they will realize they don't need Chavez.

And perhaps someday we will discover if the CIA gave him that cancer.