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Reporter's Notebook:

Otto Reich is Outa There

Posted by - June 16, 2004 at 6:58 pm
According to Reuters, Otto Reich has resigned.  "For personal and financial reasons."  Which is more or less what they all say.  If things haven't been going so well for poor Otto, I wish him nothing but more of the same in his future endeavors.  

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=poli ticsNews&storyID=5440997

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Adios Otto: Send Out "The Clown"

Submitted June 16, 2004 - 7:05 pm by Al Giordano
From the Reuters report:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Otto Reich, who took a hard line against presidents Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, resigned as a top adviser to President Bush on Latin America, officials said on Wednesday.
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a statement that she accepted the resignation of Reich "with regret" and praised his "service to our country and his commitment to a brighter future for the western hemisphere."

Reich said last month he planned to quit for "personal and financial reasons" and that he may join Bush's re-election campaign. Rice's statement did not say what Reich's plans were, but an aide said he planned to return to the private sector...

In other words, after doing his time in government serving the interests of the wealthy oligarchs... it's payday for Otto (Washington's anti-"revolving door" laws being so weak that you could drive a coup d'etat through them).

Well, this will be interesting... Narco News will be watching closely to see what colonial financial interests reward Reich now for his "service" destabilizing democracy in Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere.

One down, one to go: Still-At-Large is Otto's protegé in the State Department Roger Noriega.

But the nickname that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela gave him after Reich supported the failed 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela... "El Payaso, or "the clown," does not come off with his White House badge... it will follow Otto wherever his clown shoes take him.

Otto Reich's Final Tantrum

Submitted June 19, 2004 - 11:24 am by Al Giordano
I'm surprised that this report from the BBC in Spanish hasn't been reported in the English-language media yet.

Ex-Bush administration Latin America fixer and extremist, who resigned this week seeking, he said, payday in the private sector, Otto Reich, told BBC on his way out the revolving door:

"Now that I am not in the administration I can say that we would like Chavez to go because he is not a democrat and because he has done much damage to the Venezuelan people."

To hear Washington's #1 coup-plotter whine about who is "a democrat" or not is pretty funny. Anyway, he reveals, with that statement, through his use of the word "we" the intentions of the Bush administration in Venezuela.

As humorist Randy Credico likes to say: "Hey, did you hear that Otto Reich has three older brothers? That's why they call him the Fourth Reich!"

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