UPDATE 1-Obama, Venezuela's Chavez shake hands at summit
PORT OF SPAIN, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday greeted and shook hands with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez during an impromptu meeting with the anti-U.S. leader at the Summit of the Americas.
Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Chavez, a fierce foe of former President George W. Bush, smiling and clasping hands with Obama at the start of the summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Trinidad.
"I greeted Bush with this hand eight years ago; I want to be your friend," Chavez told Obama, according to a Venezuelan presidential press office statement.
Chavez, a staunch ally of Cuba, had became one of the Bush's administrations most strident critics. In March, he called Obama at best an "ignoramus" after the U.S. leader said Chavez obstructed progress in Latin America.
Ties between Washington and Caracas have frayed under Chavez, who often accuses U.S. officials of trying to topple him. Chavez expelled the U.S. envoy to Caracas in September in a dispute over U.S. activities in Venezuelan ally Bolivia.
Former soldier Chavez says socialist revolution can counter U.S. free-market policies in South America and he has become a standard-bearer for anti-U.S. sentiment in the region. But Washington has branded him a threat to regional stability. (Reporting by Patrick Markey; Editing by Eric Walsh)
(Highlites by PFGG)
This is the same president who BOWED to a king, called America "ARROGANT", had DHS declare returning war veterans possible "TERRORISTS", calls the War on Terrorism as an "OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATION", calls TERRORISM as a "MAN MADE CAUSE", wants to open relationship with one of the most inhuman governments of the world.
This is the president who desires to cuddle up with Fidel Castro who has for over 50 years has depressed, and put in prison anyone who disagrees with his communist run government in Cuba. What in the world is the president of the United States accomplishing with his total lack of foreign diplomacy as witnessed by his actions and the asinine appointment of tax evaders of his administration along with the CREATION of his CZARS to oversee what they have absolutely no knowledge of their own actions?
OBAMA's WORLD of CZARS !
Hum-m-m it seems to this writer that Obama's growing list of CZARS would remind one of that of a government in a country known as Russia. To avoid Senate scrutiny, and approval Obama has evaded the "nomination process" to give his cronies a place in his government. So far -- he has appointed SEVEN CZARS -- the latest being a "BORDER CZAR" (?), which now almost is half of the number of Czars in Russian history that has had only 18 in its' entire HISTORY !
