[livius]

Something's definitely got to give down there. Chavez appears to have nine lives, unfortunately. He just keeps popping up again, partly because Venezuelans are still civilized enough not to want to appear like blood thirsty members of a banana republic by killing him right off the bat. I think he's rapidly wearing away that civilization, though.

If he actually gets driven out of Venezuela alive, I look for him to pop up in Cuba as Castro's annointed heir.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Who can bring all the political factions together in Venezuela? Here is one anaylsis.

Communist and former ally seen as perfect man to push Chávez out*** Miquilena's party holds only four of the 79 opposition seats in the 165-member Assembly, against 83 Chávez supporters and three independents, according to most opposition head counts. But his leftist pro-Chávez credentials make him the perfect man to lure away moderate Chavista Assembly members willing to dump the president because of the passions he incites undermine the socialist policies that they support in this oil-rich but grindingly poor nation -- ``Chavismo without Chávez.'' Those same credentials, however, make some Chávez opponents wary of Miquilena. ''The fact that people see him as a moderate is a sign of our desperation,'' said Robert Bottome, publisher of the VenEconomía weekly. Miquilena declined Herald requests for an interview. ***