He's guilty! Guilty, I tell you!

To be filed under the heading "what sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander" comes the International Herald Tribune report that

the Bush administration is weighing a tougher approach [toward Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez], including funneling more money to foundations and business and political groups opposed to his leftist government, American officials say.

"Frustrated" by their inability to find allies in their attempts to isolate Chávez, the Shrub gangsters have

[a] multiagency task force in Washington ... working on shaping a new approach, one that high-ranking American policy makers say would most likely veer toward a harder line. U.S. backing for groups that Chávez supporters say oppose the government has been a source of tension in the past. American officials said that support may increase.

It's worth noting here that if the situation was reversed and Chávez was giving money to anti-Bush groups in the US, that would be enough to get them labeled "subversive," "anti-American," and probably "security risks." The bogeyman of "foreign money" is frequently raised in an attempt to discredit domestic opposition in the US. Even something as moderate as the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s was Red-baited with rumors and innuendo that it received money from the USSR. Apparently, the evils of "foreign money" and "outside influence" don't apply when we're the foreigners and the outsiders.

What especially galls the WHS* is that

Chávez's strength has grown. He won a recall election last August, and record high oil prices have left his government flush with money....

And he's expected to win a second 6-year term as president in elections next year. All of which has happened since he was briefly ousted in a military coup in 2002, with the US rushing to offer an endorsement of the "new government." Even worse,

Washington has little, if any, influence over Caracas. The high price of oil has left Venezuela with no need for the loans or other aid that the United States could use as leverage.

So there's this lefty who keeps winning elections despite the influx of US money (It's illegal for US political candidates to accept foreign donations - another goose/gander difference.) and who thumbs his nose at us - and, unlike, say Chile in 1973, there is no way for us to "make the economy scream." The Shrub team must be going out of their minds.

*WHS = White House Sociopaths