Libya and Latin America

Another conservative criticism of the Libya-Latin America link from José Cárdenas at Foreign Policy.  For once I actually agree with most of what he says, until the end when he cannot help make it into a criticism of the Obama administration.

All this crystallizes the situation for the United States in Latin America today: between serious governments with whom we can do business and the irresponsible outliers with whom we share hardly any common interests. It is a distinction the Obama administration doesn't always seem to appreciate. At a House Western Hemisphere subcommittee hearing last week, Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) chided Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela on this score, saying that our hemispheric policy seems to be all about trying to make up with our enemies and ignoring our friends. Let's hope the disparate reactions to the carnage in Libya will serve as a wake-up call to realign our priorities in the Western Hemisphere.

If we didn't "do business" with "serious" countries that had ties to Libya and had nice photo-ops with Gaddafi, we wouldn't do business with much of Europe.  Plus, Bolivia is not the same as Venezuela, since the former is actually pursuing unpopular market reforms.  In general, the stubborn inability to see any nuance is tiring, though not surprising.