In the category of rings hollow:

“I don’t think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people’s lives,” Mr. Bush said, speaking at a joint news conference with Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In the category of simple slapdown:

“The Bush plan is ridiculous,” Mr. Chávez said at the gathering in Buenos Aires, across the Río de la Plata from Montevideo, Uruguay, Mr. Bush’s next stop. “He thinks he is Columbus, discovering poverty after seven years in power.”

In the category of righteous sanctification:

Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate “bad spirits” after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

“That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture,” Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

In the category of stating the obvious:

At the rally Friday night, Mr. Chávez said he had watched Mr. Bush on television in Brazil and concluded that “he is afraid to say my name” because Mr. Chávez’s vision of “21st century socialism” is advancing in the region.

“Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, terrorism, security, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq,” he said mockingly. “He seems incapable of developing even a single idea.”

Well, ‘Iraq’, ‘terrorism’, and ‘security’ might together qualify as ‘a single idea’. But not a good one. And it is hard to identify a second idea that Bush has developed. Maybe Mars Bitches might qualify.

More Chavez:

“The little imperial gentleman from the north must be across the river by now. Let’s send him a big shout: ‘Gringo go home,’ ” Mr Chavez told thousands at a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires, across the River Plate from the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.

“We don’t even need to make an effort to sabotage his tour. He’s a political cadaver. He exhales the smell of the political dead, and he will soon be cosmic dust that will disappear from the stage.”

This Hugo guy knows how to talk smack. I hope he realizes that the Bush family is resilient and has a long memory (see Saddam). In the meantime, the United States must endure the humiliation of having our President righteously condemned, the ground he walks on considered unholy…

Maybe the Mayan priests will come to Washington DC in 2009 and help re-sanctify the White House.