It could. Roger Cohen’s piece today praises Hugo Chavez and attacks the United States because Venezuela just demonstrated it is more of a democracy. I wish I were joking. I mean, really. It quotes Chavez in the aftermath of the defeat of the referendum that would have made him a dictator: “The people’s decision will be upheld in respect of the basic rule of democracy: the winning option is the one that gets most votes.” After which Roger Cohen observes: “The United States might ponder those words — not just because of what happened in the presidential election of 2000; not just because the arithmetic of voting has proved unpalatable in Palestine; not just because of the past U.S.-abetted trampling of elected Latin American leaders in Chile and elsewhere — but because democracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America.”

Foreign to Bush’s America? You mean Bush’s America where out-of-power Democrats won 32 seats in the House and seven seats in the Senate only 13 months ago? Is there no such thing as an editor at the New York Times?