The 2002 Presidential Election in Bolivia:

It’s hard to know whether to marvel or weep when James Carville goes into his Bill Clinton-meets-Looney Tunes act in Rachel Boynton’s knockout documentary Our Brand Is Crisis–the context is so morally topsy-turvy. As a high-priced consultant to the 2002 Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (“Goni”), Carville gives a dazzling demonstration of how a politician should field an “oddball crap question” and steer it, in as few words as possible, back to the campaign’s message, which in this case is, “We’re in a crisis–and I’m the guy with the know-how to fix it.” The problem is that the blinkered patrician Goni doesn’t have the know-how to fix a stopped toilet, much less a country on the verge of economic collapse, with a disenfranchised indigenous majority howling to be recognized.

Bolivians quickly came to loathe Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his “shock therapy” economics.”  In October 2003, Sanchez de Lozada fled Bolivia and secured legal status in the United States.  The Bolivian government has requested the extradition of Sánchez de Lozada for multiple crimes.  He remains in the US.

What is Carville up to these days?

“I’m not going to waste my time writing you about how great Hillary is or how formidable she’d be – you know it all already,” he says in the e-mail, which was shared with Post Politics. “But it isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank — and that’s why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that’s out there for Hillary’s candidacy into a real grassroots organization.”

More bad blood between the US and Evo Morales and Bolivia:

In September 2008, Morales accused the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, of “conspiring against democracy” and encouraging civil unrest, and went on to order him to leave the country. The U.S. government responded to Morales’ action by ordering the Bolivian ambassador, Gustavo Guzman, out of their own country. The following day Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stood in solidarity with his Bolivian allies by ordering the U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy out of his country, telling him to “go to hell 100 times” and withdrawing the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S.

The secret US cables released by Wikileaks confirmed US covert actions in Bolivia.

Not nice to expose nefarious US government activities.  

While ordinary Americans wouldn’t know Evo Morales from Marco Rubio, not so with Carville and others in DC.  And it appears that they cashed in a few of their chips to stick it to Morales.

According to The Guardian, Evo Morales is spending an unscheduled night in a Vienna hotel.  Returning from a gas producers conference in Russia, Morales’ plane was denied flyover rights in France and Portugal and forced to reroute and land in Austria.  Allegedly because some powerful people suspected that Edward Snowden might be on Morales’ plane — he wasn’t.    

If Snowden isn’t allowed to seek asylum in Bolivia, shouldn’t we send Sanchez de Lozada back to his country to face justice?        

[Update 1]
Per The Guardian

Bolivian defence minister Ruben Saavedra has said that Portugal and France have reconsidered the airspace ban and will now allow Morales’ plane to overfly both countries, Reuters reports.

However, Saavedra says that Italy and Spain have refused to allow the plane to enter their air space.

It is unclear if these comments were made during Saavedra’s initial press conference or whether they were delivered subsequently.

He said:

Two countries have changed their positions, first France and now Portugal. We will patiently seek to resolve the negative position taken by Italy and Spain, according to international norms.

Too late France and Portugal; you’ve already shown that you’re US lackeys.

[Update 2]

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry have released a statement condemning the incident, CNN report.

CNN quote an extract from the statement:

This constitutes an unacceptable, unfounded and arbitrary act which offends all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report also quotes Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino who has also spoken to reporters. He said:

We consider this a huge offense, and I will call for a UNASUR special summit with foreign secretaries to discuss this issue.

UNASUR Constitutive Treaty

Italy has cleared Morales’ plane for overflight. Spain still holding out.

[Update 3]

Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner has tweeted that she has been advised that Peruvian president Ollanta Humala will call a meeting of the Union of South American Nations to discuss ongoing events.

Kirchner said “tomorrow is going to be a long and difficult day. Be calm. They will not be able to.”

(This is the Guardian’s translation of her tweet in Spanish)

[Update 4]

For the benefit of those on blogs that couldn’t connect the dots between the US and overflight denial to Morales’s plane:

Our Washington bureau chief, Dan Roberts, has been at the State Department briefing. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki has confirmed that the US has been in contact with countries that had a “chance” of Snowden flying through their air space:

We have been in contact with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country but I am not going to outline what those countries were or when this [contact] happened.
…

Morales’s plane has left the Canary Islands and is now over the Atlantic Ocean.

[Update 5]

Spain admits US tip-off on Morales plane.

Spain acknowledged on Tuesday [July 9, 2013] that a U.S. request had led it to delay approving an overflight by Bolivia’s president, but said it had given the go-ahead after receiving an assurance from Bolivia that U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden was not on the plane.

Plenty on the “left” not only couldn’t connect the dots on this but also actively denigrated those that could and did.

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