SOMEONE NOTICED - AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  Well, maybe the new diplomacy practiced by the Obamans - read that appeasement with a slicker face - won't allow for the use of the D-word, but it's sometimes unavoidable.  Joel Brinkley, formerly of the New York Times, and now teaching at Stanford, hurls the epithet at Hugo Chavez, and throws in Hosni Mubarak for good measure, in a piece for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service:

Just as oil-rich Venezuela sinks deeper into debt, Hugo Chavez, its flamboyant and megalomaniacal president, has crossed the line and can now quite accurately be called a dictator.

A rush of new orders and decrees in recent days is silencing critics, neutering political opponents, shutting down the last of Venezuela's independent media and purging the military of all but the most sycophantic officers.

Chavez's behavior is reminiscent of President Hosni Mubarak's heavy-handed approach in Egypt. About all that's missing is the political prisoners. But, like Mubarak, Chavez does not hesitate to attack his critics with utterly nonsensical allegations, apparently without the slightest care about how ridiculous it looks.

In Egypt last week, opposition politician Ayman Nour, just out of prison, announced that he would run for president again. As he left home the very next day, a man waiting for him on a motorcycle threw a fire bomb in his face. We had nothing to do with it, the government averred.

COMMENT:  I don't know what Brinkley's politics are.  He's always struck me as a very sane and careful reporter.  But I am starting to sense, in the stories I research each day, a bit of a pushback by some in the media against the sometimes adolescent tone of this administration's foreign policy.  Maybe some journalists are beginning to confront reality.  I hope they're aware of the party invitations it may cost them.

June 8, 2009