Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez didn’t like the Constitutional term limits that restrict him from being leader for life, the one thing that all Communists crave, so he has set out to change the Constitution.

In an address to the National Assembly, Chavez laid out 33 changes that he says would incorporate socialist ideology into the constitution that he pushed through in 2000, and redistribute power and resources to the poor and disadvantaged.

Since he has been in power since 2000 should the “poor and disadvantaged” already be taken care of? Didn’t the amendments of 2000 take care of the people or did he have to wait until he had a totalitarian lock on the government? He has substantially diverted and restructured law to marginalize the opposition and consolidate his power. This is much like the tactics of the anti-reformer and un-democrat Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Chavez proposed adding one year to the current six-year presidential term and eliminating the two-term limit, allowing him and future presidents to run for reelection indefinitely. He rejected criticism that he was becoming increasingly autocratic.

“It’s not that I want to enthrone myself,” Chavez said. “This shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s done this way in any number of countries.

“There are many lies circulating in the world, about a dictatorship in Venezuela, about a concentration of power in Venezuela,” he said. “This is a transfer of power to the people.”

If not a dictatorship then why redistribute private property? Why take government control of the media and restrict free speech? Why threaten to arrest or expel critics of the government and the President? If that is not a concentration of the power in one man I cannot imagine what is. The Constituiton of Venezuela I would assume is there to protect all of the people, not just those close to Hugo and as such, changing it does little more than show El Presidente’s true colors which are as red as his favorite clothing hue.

By calling his proposal a “reform” rather than a wholesale revision, Chavez avoids elections to form a constitutional assembly such as the one he called in 1999. Rather, Chavez has drafted the new measures himself with the help of a constitutional commission made up of sympathetic lawmakers, judges and journalists.

Limit the possibility of getrting his way by actually letting a diverse cross-section of views into the process? Not Hugo, I’m shocked.

Although Chavez has been subjected to widespread criticism in recent weeks, his popularity remains above 60%. He has been criticized for bending Venezuela’s institutions to his will, but Chavez’s supporters remind critics that he has won four national elections, including his initial election victory in 1998.

They were all on the up and up too, ask Jimmy Carter. When you promise the poor and desperate something for nothing you can bet you’ll get that vote, the rest you just steal.

After President Bush proposed a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage the hue and cry was to protect the Constitution and will of the people. Every time the administration makes a move to protect the country we hear about an erosion of our freedoms or our cruelty to others be it warrantless wiretapping, imprisonment of enemy combatants, or airport security searches. Yet Chavez, darling of the leftist elite, continually warps his government to gain absoulte power and we hear not a peep.

Heck the Hollywood ego-political power structure are lining up to visit with the man. Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Sean Penn and anyone else who wants to show they care more than the Commander in Chief. Cindy Sheehan, media moth and political lightweight, allowed herself to be used as a photo-op and now Presidential hopeful Barack Obama claims he would talk to him without precondition and subject the United States to ridicule as he is used as a prop, while Hugo Chavez’s Latin-American Communist revolution rolls on.

Let’s face it, the left’s fascination with Chavez is that he hates the President, and nothing more. Try making an anti-Government movie like George Clooney did with Syriana in Chavez’s Venezuela and see how far you get. All that is left for Hugo to do is purge the non-loyalists by death and mass expulsion. That is the Communist script and the use of the word socialism is only meant to soften the blow. Socialism is only Communist-lite and any system that takes from the individual to redistribute unequally among the masses is evil and only serves the government. If I were a Venezuelan today I would be very afraid for the future. Castro is dying in Cuba and Hugo Chavez wants to rise in his place, only this time the dictator has money and natural resources. America, including Barack Obama should hold this man at arms length.

We have seen a dictator and it is not President Bush; it wears the red beret of Hugo Chavez.