For years, George Bush was proclaimed by media pundits and Democrats as the source of our unpopularity around the world. Barack Obama would be a fresh start and his elections promised to restore America’s image-and influence, if not power-around the world. This became an idée fixe during the campaign and prompted many Americans to extend their support to him. Reality has now intruded on this mirage. Not only has Barack Obama been upbraided by the Iranian mullahs-who have already laid out conditions that they insist on before deigning to talk with Obama- but now Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, has come out swinging: In an interview shown in the past week on the Spanish-language network Univision, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said that Venezuela's firebrand president, Hugo Chávez, has hindered progress in Latin America, and he expressed concern that Chávez's leftist government has assisted Colombia's biggest guerrilla movement, a group the United...(Read Full Post)