last night”s Newsnight was hilarious, just superb: a look at what”s happening in Latin America, with the upcoming elections in Peru, and discussions related to whether there is such a thing as a “continental drift to the left”. ( and if so, what could the US administration”s reaction possibly be..)
Gavin Esler interviewed Ollanta Humala, one of Lima”s presidential candidates, while Greg Palast had a chummy chat with Hugo Chavez and took a look around Caracas and reported, amongst other things, on the health situation and the Cuban doctors.
the really amusing bit of course was when “Ambassador Otto Reich” - who is the “assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs” and back in the day was once the US Ambassador to Venezuela - came on air and was asked his opinion on Latin American politics. he seemed to be under the impression that any democracy is of course due to efforts of guess who - Big Brother USA - and of course, at the same time, there had been no such thing as Big Brother “intervening” in any coups in the past. oh no not at all, so Gavin Esler ( with a big smile on his face) reminded him of the scandals back in the day - when mr. reich was linked to that rather well known character - mr. oliver north.
brilliant - and dear Otto swung back with some retort along the lines of “aha you have just exposed your anti-US feelings on the BBC!” what a lot of jolly comedy. good one Gavin, i”m sure you really enjoyed that as much as the rest of watching along and having fits of laughter. im sure had otto tried to retain some cool he”d have been that much more “believable”. then again im sure he”s aware that people have terrible memories and kids nowadays - hell the 80″s was a long time ago. who”s going to remember who was connected to whom anyway?
this guardian article has some useful reading on Reich”s dodgy exploits back in the day
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