"Bush's Venezuelagate"

The year was 1996 and the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign was facing massive criticism from its acceptance of foreign funding from Asian sources. The media and Republican party leadership was alleging a sinister quid pro quo, and the “selling of the Lincoln Bedroom” was widely seen as yet another indiscretion of a sitting President who had more than his share of major and minor scandals. Impetus for the subsequent McCain – Feingold campaign finance reform act derived support from the nearly xenophobic suspicion that outsiders were buying the domestic political process.

Fast forward to 2004, and a similar tinkering, this time by U.S. government money in the Venezuelan referendum, is aggressively defended by Washington. The Washington Post loudly proclaimed an American right to give U.S. funds “in an effort to organize a free election,” justifying this position by saying that Venezuelan political parties have been funded by Washington for years, and alleging that Venezuela’s use of Cuban doctors is somehow comparable (The Washington Post’s own reporter has shown that the doctors’ work is not political .) This represents the basic “Washington Consensus” on the matter: that the funding is helping Venezuelans to exercise their constitutional right to a recall.

Full Article : americas.org