King Juan Carlos to Hugo: "Por Que' No Te Callas?"

Loosely translated from the Spanish, it means, "Shut your pie hole!"

At the annual Ibero-American summit meeting in Santiago, Chile last week, Venezuela's leftist President had a "there-he-goes-again" moment, by repeatedly referring to the former Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, as a "fascist." Apparently, King Juan Carlos of Spain had finally had enough and he told Chavez, in as many words, to "shut up." http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1682967,00.html?imw=Y

If ever someone needed to shut his pie hole, it's the President of Venezuela.

In remarks before the United Nations in September of last year, Chavez referred to President Bush as "The Devil," and spoke of the smell of "sulfur," at the rostrum where Bush had spoken the day before.

Fancying himself the western hemisphere's natural successor to Fidel Castro, since assuming power in 1999, Chavez has destroyed the remnants of Venezuela's democratic institutions, and has worked tirelessly to move Venezuela firmly into the Cuban dictator's camp.

No thanks to James Earl Carter Jr.

Twice, in 2000 and 2004, the ex-U.S. President helpfully certified dubious election results in the South American nation, helping to bestow legitimacy upon Chavez and to solidify his grasp on power.

In an editorial written in February 2005, U.S. News and World Report publisher Mortimer Zuckerman laid out the steps Chavez was taking to silence his opposition and strengthen his ties with Cuba, since Carter's meddling the previous September. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050214/14edit.htm

The last two years have seen more of the same.

In addition to his close friendship with Castro, Chavez has formed alliances with Iran, China, and the marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

As for King Juan Carlos, if there is any mandatario in the Spanish-speaking world, with the moral authority to deliver this long-overdue rejoinder, it is the Spanish monarch. The handpicked successor to Spain's late fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, shortly after assuming the thrown in 1975 following Franco's death, Juan Carlos quickly instituted long-awaited democratic reforms.

In June of 1977, Spain held its first elections since the end of the Spanish Civil War.

In 1981, in a desperate attempt to preserve the old order, members of the Guardia Civil attempted to overthrow the fledgling monarchy. It was Juan Carlos himself who convinced the plotters to give up.

Sitting next to the King when he delivered his rebuke was Spain's current Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero - a socialist. No stranger to the evils of fascism, Zapatero's grandfather was executed by a Falangist firing squad during the Spanish Civil War.

Ordinarily, The Flying Curmudgeon would be hard-pressed to find anything positive to say about Zapatero. It was Zapatero who, upon becoming PM, made one of his first official acts the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq, shortly after the Madrid train bombings of 11 March 2004.

(As the bombings occurred a mere three days prior to the elections, they seemed to have had the effect that the Islamo-fascists had been looking for.)

His socialist bona fides nothwithstanding, apparently Zapatero is a believer in the old adage: "Politics End at the Water's Edge." Zapatero came to Aznar's defense, reminding Chavez that, in spite of political differences he might have with Aznar, he (Aznar) was freely elected by the Spanish people.

(Politicians in the U.S. could learn something from Zapatero in this regard.)

It was during Zapatero's defense of the former Spanish PM, which Chavez repeatedly attempted to interrupt, that Juan Carlos delivered his rebuke.

In case loyal readers of TFC are unaware, the U.S. receives close to one-ninth of its petroleum imports from Venezuela, which constitute about one-third of Venezuela's annual GDP. http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=900003&contentID=254049

Much of this money goes to fund Chavez's many "reforms," as he effectively buys the support of Venezuela's poor, through his Revolucion Bolivariano. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/international/americas/30venez.html

In effect, we are paying for all this.

Think about that the next time you are tempted to pull in to a Citgo station to fill up.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-01-11-citgo-cover-usat_x.htm

TFC