Hot Air:

Chavez arrests head of last independent media outlet

“Venezuela takes yet another step towards becoming a Sean Penn Paradise.  Hugo Chavez had Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision Television, arrested forallegedly making offensive comments about Chavez, a crime in Hugo’s fiefdom these days.  And it’s not the only significant person now in prison for insulting the President-for-Life, either:

Today, the Venezuelan government arrested Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Globovision Television, the only remaining television on public airwaves critical of Hugo Chavez. According to the government, Zuloaga made offensive comments about Chavez (which is against the law in Venezuela) while speaking at a conference of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in Aruba, where media representatives criticized the Venezuelan regime’s crackdown on freedom of speech. …

“It is becoming a crime to have an opinion.” That’s how Carlos Zuloaga summed it up this afternoon when he referred to this incident and the recent arrest of former Venezuelan state governor Oswaldo Alvarez Paz for having said during a Globovision interview that Venezuela has become a drug-trafficking haven.

How will hemispheric leaders and the Organization of American States react to this renewed attack on free speech in Venezuela?

Hemispheric leaders such as the Castro Brothers and Daniel Ortega?  I’d doubt we’ll hear much from them.  After all, Cuba has done much worse to its internal critics, and Nicaragua isn’t following too far behind Chavez now.

How about hemispheric leader Barack Obama?  Our President intervened when Honduras took action against Manuel Zelaya’s attempted power grab by … siding with Zelaya, and with Chavez, the Castro Brothers, and Ortega.  But if the case of Zuloaga doesn’t generate some outrage from the White House, how about the case ofOswaldo Alvarez Paz, the opposition leader jailed under the same statute?”

What say you Mr. Obama???