One area where Spain excels is in being utterly powerless. Take bullfighting as an example. While many condemn this tradition for its supposed cruelty, Spaniards take great pride in it and are indifferent to global opinions.
Now, Chávez, whom everyone and his sister view as the embodiment of a pariah, continues to insult people, when he’s not busy commanding his thugs to shoot at unarmed enemies. Although it seems that Spain’s King Juan Carlos grew weary of the Venezuelan leader at the Ibero-American Summit in Chile and told him to be quiet, while the parachutist kept interrupting former ally, Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero.
But the icing on the proverbial cake has to be the intervention of Carlos Lage, representative of the longest-serving dictator in Ibero-America, who had the audacity to tell democratically elected officials, unlike him, that legitimacy is not earned solely through ballots but rather through conduct in the exercise of power. Honestly, this is the kind of material that proves reality is more surreal than fiction.
In the meantime, one can only hope that more and more democratic leaders adopt the King’s language when addressing insolent tinpot dictators.