Thus the other shoe dropeth. After the vehement refusal of Chavez to receive the new ambassador, Larry Palmer, the US decided to reply in kind by revoking the diplomatic visa of Alvarez in Washington.
There are two ways to look at this: the serious way or the ridiculous a la Golinger. Since we are still so close from Venezuela's fool day (December 28) I will write it both ways.
First, seriously, it is a non issue. Chavez does not want to receive Palmer because his confirmation hearings were leaked and we all learned that he said what we all knew already about Venezuela. I suppose that such a well informed ambassador was not something that Chavez wanted. Or perhaps it was a set up to corner Chavez into breaking up a relationship with the US?
The thing is that the US and Venezuela are past the need for ambassadors. The USof A in Caracas was not received by anyone from the regime for any serious discussion and was probably spending his time reading Venezuelan newspapers to be able to make reports. Visa people at the embassy apparently got more actions as we learned from wikileaks.
As for the Venezuelan one in Washington, well, he was not Venezuela's ambassador but Chavez one. Why you may ask? Because he spent all of his time doing pro Chavez propaganda or countering anti Chavez articles, something that the US one in Caracas could not dream to do, no matter the ridiculous accusations of Eva Golinger that everyone opposing Chavez is financed by the US (my check, Eva, I am still waiting, please, do ask your embassy to forward it to me). In other words, the US ambassador wanted to do his job but could not whereas the Venezuela ambassador could do his job but would not. Hence my original statement that withdrawing ambassadors are a savings each country can use as the rest of the personnel remain sin place, working as usual. Meanwhile oil will keep going to the US and dollars to Venezuela.
Which brings us to the Golinger tart new idiocy. Apparently we learned of the official visa revocation through a tweet of la Golinger. I kid you not, I even heard it in Alo Ciudadano. So I went and sure enough I found her tweet which I gladly reproduce below [sic]:
US revokes "visa" for Venezuelan ambassador who has been oin DC for 7 years, provoking a rupture in relations
Now, the poor thing has no idea what she is writing about, something confirmed by the string of tweets she did before and after that one: more than a dozen in English and Spanish, repetitive, putting all the blame in the US. Just on this tweet we can already perceive that she finds it normal that an ambassador spends 7 years in a position. When an ambassador spends more than three years in a position that means s/he has stopped representing the country and is now representing something else. Usually the precedents are not flattering such as the Cuban ambassador that stayed with Chavez a decade or the Soviet one in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, on the job for 26 years! I can assure you one thing: Alvarez is no Dobrynin!
And of course, I will pass on the poor thing considering this as a break in relationship. Eva, who are we going to sell the oil that pays for your paycheck? Sweetie, get a grip!