The incredibly predictable result that no one in the US press could have predicted

The news today:

To the euphoria of supporters in and around his campaign headquarters, the National Electoral Council announced the president [Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez] had secured 54.4% of the votes, while his rival Capriles was behind with 44.9%. Some votes were still to be counted, but the council said the result was not in doubt.
…
The opposition camp were also also due to comment. Hours earlier they had claimed that exit polls showed their candidate had won by a comfortable margin.

A few days ago:

Chavez is facing his stiffest electoral challenge to date in his race to defeat Capriles, who has widened his lead to almost 5 percentage points in a poll conducted by Consultores 21 ahead of the Oct. 7 vote.

Capriles had 51.8 percent support against 47.2 percent for Chavez among Venezuelans who said they’re sure to vote, the Caracas-based company’s vice president Saul Cabrera said today.

If the opposition weren’t such a bunch of liars, they might have had a chance to beat Chavez. Only Americans seem to think that lying is acceptable in leaders.

Unless they’re Democrats lying about an affair, of course.

Another highly predictable thing that will never be predicted by the US press is that a Romney presidency would be an absolute disaster for the US.

Anyway, Chavez got re-elected because, despite his rather obvious flaws, the lives of the 70% of Venezuela that is very poor have improved, something that eluded all the preceding right-wing regimes. And he pretty clearly cares about seeing things improve, even if he’s not particularly ept in making them do so. And the US and British press has been lying about how close the race was. And no one could possibly predict that the public will stop relying on them as a consequence.

Allen Quist Is A Nimrod: Marriage Edition

Over at Bluestem Prairie, Sally Jo Sorensen documents the stupidity and mendaciousness of Mr. Julie Quist:

As readers may recall, Winona Daily News staff writer Mary Juhl first reported a curious wrinkle at Quist’s final stop in his Walz-apology press tour in Quist: Government doesn’t belong in gay marriage debate. Next New Ulm Journal reporter Josh Moniz tried to follow up on that, and Quist ended the phone conversation abruptly, as Moniz reported in Quist unwilling to clarify statements on marriage amendment.

City Pages’ Aaron Rupar picked it up in Allen Quist directly contradicts himself on gay marriage, is called on it, refuses to clarify and the Minnesota Progressive Project’s EricPusey rounded out the week with Allen Quist, the stickler for accuracy, won’t clarify his statement on marriage equality.

Is gets worse:

Bluestem found video of the episode in the DFL tracker’s raw footage of the Winona press conference. Since the marriage amendment is a hot question in Minnesota, what Quist said in his next breath didn’t attract attention:

There are a lot of reasons for the high divorce rate. One of the reasons is that people in poverty game the system and they realize that if they’re not married they’re going to qualify for benefits much better than if they get married. That’s not the only reason for not–for the high divorce rate, but i want you to know it’s an important one.

Go check out the whole thing.