Manuel Rosales was in Washington this weekend! I know, for a second I was thinking “who was Manuel Rosales again?” too. But then I remembered that he ran for president of Venezuela last year promising to give everyone a debit card linked directly to the treasury and Venezuelans were like “haha no” and he lost in a humiliating defeat.
Naturally, he’s still the Bush Administration’s top pick to run the country, so they flew him up to D.C. on Friday to give him—sorry, ask him—his opinion on current events at home. The State Department’s Latin America guy, Tom Shannon, “reminded reporters Venezuela's constitutional affairs were a strictly Venezuelan debate,” but was quickly corrected by Rosales, who explained that they were actually discussing direct U.S. involvement in the whole process. Then they laughed at their little joke and he went home again.
