For nearly seven years, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has led a successful fight to reclaim his country from the plague of narcoterrorism and to rebuild national confidence.
Simultaneously, Mr. Uribe first orchestrated re-election to a second term in 2006 and has since worked assiduously to be "drafted" for a third term beginning in 2010.
In so doing, a determined center-right free-marketer has put himself in the anti-term-limits company of ultraleftist autocrats, including Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. All three have used extraconstitutional means to allow themselves multiple terms in office and, together with neighboring Nicaragua's uber-left, uber-corrupt President Daniel Ortega, have supported their Honduran ally Manuel Zelaya in his criminally quixotic quest to remove restrictions to presidential re-election.
President Obama must have surprised Mr. Uribe when he supported term limits during their June 29 White House meeting and press conference. That Mr. Obama should have spoken at length about legitimacy and the importance of not appearing to manipulate or alter the electoral process -- on the heels of his support for the Zelaya-Chavez attempt to unconstitutionally change the Honduran system -- is only partly puzzling.
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