Oh No! It’s Hugo!

I swear. The nerve of some people.

It seems that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is setting things up with his allies in the legislature to get himself special powers that will allow him to rule by decree for eighteen months.

According to Reuters,

The former soldier has said he would use the expanded powers to end the autonomy of the nation’s central bank, create a national police force and boost state control over the nation’s oil industry, which provides around 11 percent of U.S. oil imports.

Here’s the important bit, though:

State Department spokesman Tom Casey on Friday said the legislation by decree proposal was “a sovereign right of Venezuela but certainly … a bit odd in terms of a democratic system.”

You’ve got to admit, Casey has a point. We’ve all seen what can happen when the leader of what had been a democracy grabs at power, refuses to work with other branches of government, claims that he has the power to simply ignore the law even as he’s signing bills, and insists that his constitutional powers basically let him get away with anything. For example… um…. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s happened somewhere in the past. Anyway, it’s bad, ok?