The VII Summit of the Americas ended last week but the clowns are still parading. Endless propaganda articles from Leftist media extolling “the new defeat for US” continue to pop on my news alerts, but every so often you get one worth reading: For instance, Daniel Lambert-Rodríguez’s account of Nicolás Maduro’s body double (you read it right, body double) hi-jinx,
In Venezuela, One President Too Many
The international media lying in wait outside the Panama City Sheraton Hotel last Saturday were momentarily misled when a stocky individual, sporting Maduro’s trademark mustache, strode out presidentially. Hand-in-hand with a petite woman somewhat reminiscent of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, the pair seemed headed in the direction of the Atlapa Convention Center, accompanied by a red-bereted honor guard and other sundry officials.
Embarrassingly, the performance proved short-lived. Fuller of figure than his presidential counterpart, with a wider nose and a distinctly rounder hairline, Budget Maduro didn’t fool the paparazzi for long. They wised up in time to film the real Maduro scurrying into a nearby vehicle which promptly took off, tires screeching.
To dig himself deeper, Maduro then called CNN “a network of lies”. You can’t make up this stuff if you try,
Not just his own, but also his wife’s,
From a historical standpoint, the list of world leaders who’ve resorted to hiring decoys for themselves reads a bit like a who’s who of mustachioed madmen — Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Saddam and Uday Hussein – individuals with a reasonable expectation of mortal danger at every turn. Not everyone is cut out for such theatrics. The act of picking out one’s own body double must be greatly discomfiting: Every unconscious mannerism, each nagging bodily insecurity must be spotlighted, and considered objectively, if the ruse is to be a success. And while wrestling with one’s own inner demons is one thing, picking out a body double for your wife seems a particularly dangerous game — particularly for a man so clearly concerned with his own mortality.
Caracas Chronicles posted on that farce. Venezuela News and Views looked at the other farce, that of the 10 million signatures: Fake signatures in lieu of votes, popular clamor in lieu of democracy.