It's hard to say what to make of the return of Daniel Ortega to Nicaragua. He says he's business friendly. He says he's found Jesus. But most signs in his election point to the reemergence of the old Marxist Sandinista autocrat he was in the 1980s. It's bad news for our hemisphere. But it's unlikely to be a trend. The year 2006 will go down in history as the great political crossroads for Latin America. Some 18 major elections have occurred or are in progress. They have largely been seen as a collective barometer of the region's supposed swing to the anti—American left. On the whole, that hasn't happened. Until Nicaragua's election, only one of these elections (technically, December 2005) really yielded a big win for the Hugo—Chavez anti—U.S. left in the Americas: backward, dirt—poor Bolivia.Every other election since then has been a victory for center—right, or center—left candidates, with the single exception of President Alvaro Uribe of...(Read Full Post)