INDIANA PARLEY

Venezuelen President Hugo Chavez and Cindy Sheehan Hit It Off

Lots of folks are blogging about Cindy Sheehan being ejected from the House Chambers last night. (e.g. Fort Wayne Indiana etc. takes issue with Left of Centrist).

Less attention has been focused on Ms. Sheehan's weekend travel to South America. On Sunday she met with Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela and, by extension, the owner/operator of Citgo Petroleum.

CNN covered the mutual admiration society between the America-hating Chavez and the off-kilter Ms. Sheehan:

Chavez said Sheehan had invited him to join her April protest at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004, held a vigil outside Bush's ranch during the president's vacation in August, attracting some 12,000 peace activists and reinvigorating the national anti-war movement.

"Maybe I'll put up my tent also," Chavez said, to applause from an audience invited to his weekly broadcast on the final day of the World Social Forum, an annual gathering of anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

Chavez said his government would help protest the war in Iraq by supporting a drive to gather petitions and delivering them to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Chavez, who before the war in Iraq had friendly relations with Saddam Hussein, has been a frequent and strident critic of the war.

Sheehan thanked Chavez for "supporting life and peace." She said earlier that she was impressed by his sincerity when they met privately Saturday.

"He said, 'Why don't I run for president?' " she said. "I just laughed."

Sheehan also noted that singer and activist Harry Belafonte recently called Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world," and said, "I agree with him. George Bush is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people."

Many of her former sympathizers are beginning to peel-off from her roadshow. So writes Susan Paynter in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer column:

Since I saluted her last summer when she took a stand in Crawford, Texas, it seems only fair that I make another public gesture now that Cindy Sheehan has removed one of her "Camp Casey" hiking shoes and stuck her foot firmly in her mouth.

That gesture is to raise a hand and cover up my wincing eyes.

Maybe some of her apologists are beginning to see the ditch in which Cindy Sheehan has placed herself. And it's not the one in Crawford, Texas.