I knew the more conservative candidate had won the presidential runoff in Chile the moment I read the headline on Yahoo!’s home page: President-elect’s victory could complicate Chile’s diplomacy. The AP also does seem to cast conservative victories in a negative light.
Writer Michael Warren was quick to link the people’s choice to a previous (and much maligned) military dictator of the South American nation:
Pinera’s election victory Sunday night ends two decades of uninterrupted rule by a center-left coalition, and returns to power the same political parties that provided civic support for Augusto Pinochet’s brutal 1973-1990 dictatorship.
For all Pinochet’s faults–and they were many–he did restore capitalism and democracy to his country. It continues to be one of the most prosperous nations in our hemisphere, in large measure because that center-left coalition, like a certain former certain-left American president, did not undermine the free market reforms of a previous bogeyman of the left, though the American one at least had a popular mandate.
Did you mean to ask “Why, in the eyes of the AP, do conservative victories always complicate matters?”
Good catch! and good question. Perhaps the same reason that the same news service always finds the regular, routine, perfectly predictable upward revisions of unemployment, and downward revisions of economic performance by this administration “unexpected”.
And next door in Argentina, the Kirchners are fighting for their political lives. The Argentine Congress is now center-right and opposes Mrs. Kirchner on most issues. She has failed in her attempt to siphon off money from the central bank to fund more populist vote-buying schemes, and was unsuccessful in firing the head of the central bank. Her term will end next year and it’s looking that Argentina will choose as president one of three viable center-right candidates. Next door, Lula is term-limited and the center-right governor of Sao Paulo state has a credible chance to win the presidency. So in the not so distant future, Obama, Chavez, and Castro may find themselves with fewer friends in South America.
Sorry, should have clarified, “next door in Brasil President Lula is term-limited.” If that happens, all the southern cone of South America except Uruguay will have center-right governments. By the way, Pinera is CENTER-RIGHT, not far right as portrayed by the AP. He is also very GAY-FRIENDLY!
I noticed the same whining and moaning when I read the story last night.
Conservative = Pinochet & Fascism
Leftist = Progressive & Democracy.
The AP is incapable of any other reasoning.
And yet, Pinochet voluntarily gave up power and returned his country to democracy. Can the same be said of Castro, Mugabe, or Chavez?
” Pinochet voluntarily gave up power”
Voluntarily? You mean he lost an election – had no more political support, and then only remained army chief for another 10 years under the provisions of the constitution he wrote?
” and returned his country to democracy.”
After overthrowing the democracy that was in place and ruling through military dictatorship for 17 years.
How can you be an apologist for this?
go read my post. I faulted Pinochet. He did return his country to democracy and restore its economic health. I praised him for that.
Tano again shows he’s as ignorant of history as he is of healthcare and everything else.
O course, he doesn’t comment on his idols of Castro and Chavez not surrendering power.
Maybe Conservatives ‘complicate’ things by maintaining law and order? You know, not arbrogating treaties for cheap points?
#6: “How can you be an apologist for this?”
Wait, hold on, Tano. Now I’m completely confused. Since when has the Left EVER had a problem with dictatorships? When did that happen? Is the Left now against all forms of dictatorships? Or, is it just this one in particular? Tano, how exactly do you select which dictatorships to support and which ones to condemn? Is it by body-count, number of private industries nationalized, whether Sean Penn has met with the regime’s leader, or what? Is it an alphabetical system (i.e., Pinochet and Pol Pot (the “Ps”) = bad; Mao and Mussolini (the “Ms”) = good)? Do you just throw darts at an atlas? I seriously would like to know how these official determinations are made by the Democratic Party. Does the NYT’s Thomas Friedman have any say in these issues? His column from September 8, 2009 seems to advocate a “reasonably enlightened group of people” standard:
“One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=2&scp=4&sq=friedman%20china%20thomas&st=cse
So, a dictatorship is A-O-K as long as the censorship, mass-murder, political imprisonments, etc. are conducted by “a reasonably enlightened group of people”? Am I on the right track, Tano? I promise I’m doing my best, but the problem is that “standards” are impossible to pin down with any precision when you’re dealing with a group of people such as yourself who reject the existence of objective right and wrong and have absolutely no principles to speak of.
P.S. Any late-breaking status update on Hitler? Still a bad guy? Or has he slid over to the “misunderstood” column?
P.P.S. How’s everything going with Ahmadinejad, by the way? For a couple of weeks Obama seemed to have the Holocaust denier placed solidly in the “Tempermental but Teachable” column, but if I’m not mistaken I believe Iran just blew off another deadline regarding the future of its nuclear program. So, what’s the 411? Good guy or bad guy? I know it changes from minute to minute so please keep us all informed. Thanks.
Chile is a free, democratic, and prosperous country. Cuba and Zimbabwe… not so much. And Venezuela, under progressive hero Hugo Chavez, has shut down all opposition media, nationalized industries, supported terrorism in neighboring countries, and… oh yeah, now has four hours a day of blackouts because they can’t even keep the lights on in the most oil-rich country in South America.
Another socialist success story.