Hugo Chavez' scary "enabling law" and Bush's fast-track authority …

Reading the commercial press, one would think Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez became a dictator this week with the passage of an "enabling law" that allows him to issue executive orders over some key areas of public policy.

According to the Times of London, "Fresh from a visit to Cuba and Fidel Castro, his closest ally and mentor" -- you've got to work that in somehow -- "President Hugo Chávez today assumed near dictatorial power in Venezuela." The Miami Herald's headline screamed "Chavez Granted Power to Rule by Decree," the Washington Post made the dubious -- and unsubstantiated -- claim that masses of Venezuelans, "filled with despair at President Hugo Chávez's growing power," are fleeing the country en masse and Investor's Business Daily warned us, simply, that "A Dictatorship Rises."

Pretty much par for the course when it comes to coverage of Venezuela -- -- the international press declared Jihad on Chavez long ago.

But let's look past that perspective and discuss what the law is about, and why the Chicken Littles who are crying 'Dictatorship!' are being typically hypocritical about the whole affair.