OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

It's not enough for the Obama administration to embrace some of the most aggressive national security policies of the Bush Administration - it has, apparently, decided it must embrace neoconservative rhetoric, too.

In her confirmation hearing this week, Samantha Power, the President's nominee to lead the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, said she would confront "repressive regimes" and contest "the crackdown on civil society being carried out in countries like Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela."

The comments, which were endorsed by the State Department, predictably outraged the democratically elected Venezuelan government and undermined ongoing negotiations aimed at restoring relations.

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