Democracy Now has an interview with Pomona College professor Miguel Tinker Salas on the latest events in Venuzuela, including the Obama administration’s recent designation of that South American nation as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to national security.” The broadcast features a clip from this precious exchange between State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and AP reporter Matt Lee:
JEN PSAKI: These latest accusations, like all previous such accusations, are ludicrous. As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by nonconstitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful and legal. We’ve seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces.
MATT LEE: Sorry. The U.S. has—whoa, whoa, whoa—the U.S. has a long-standing practice of not promoting—what did you say? How long-standing is that? I would—in particular in South and Latin America, that is not a long-standing practice.
It goes on and you should really read the whole thing, but I just had to share the “whoa whoa whoa” bit from Lee, who has quite a history with Psaki. If this were a mainstream Hollywood movie about Washington, the two of them would be having a secret affair…