During the Republican primary debates—before McCain secured the nomination— each of the candidates had, at some point, declared America's role as the defender of democracy against its (Islamist) enemies. Scarcely ten minutes after these declarations, each candidate other than McCain also declared their support for some form of torture. McCain has, however, secured the nomination and their bombastic rhetoric has somewhat faded to gray. Yet, the problem lay in the reception of those candidates' words by the audience in attendance, which cheered zealously at their declarations.

Colombia’s four-decade-long civil war caught the world’s attention recently, as international negotiations produced the release of hostages who had been detained for six years.  The high profile return of two Venezuelan politicians who had been kidnapped by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s major leftist guerrilla army, exposed tensions between Alvaro Uribue and Hugo Chávez. Chávez, whose work as mediator was instrumental in securing the release of the two hostages, provoked Uribe, South America’s lonely right-wing president, by dealing directly with a FARC general and by commenting that the rebels should be seen as a legitimate army rather than as a terrorist group.  The affair also seemed to beg the question: is Colombia’s war ever going to end?

Venezuela attracted worldwide media attention this month when the nation voted on Dec.2 to reject Chávez’s much awaited new constitution. The measure was defeated 51% to 49% by plebiscite, contrary to the world’s expectations. As the world turns its attention away from the region, Bolivia enters the final stages of another constitutional reform project that may prove much more volatile.