ROY EDROSO

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popularly elected but no friend of the world's oldest democracy, got bounced by the generales last week. Many South American leaders, including Mexico's Vincente Fox, rushed to denounce the coup.

But who cares what they think? The American Right, nostalgic for the days when anti-democratic things happened to anti-American LatAm strongmen, was briefly aglow. The Bush administration--whose diplomats had conferred with the generales about a takeover back in February--refused to even call it a coup. Good riddance, said the New York Post on April 13: "It's generally not a welcome development when a democratically elected government is overthrown--but there are exceptions." (The Post ignored the concerns of Venezuela's neighbors, highlighting instead Chavez's links to Castro, Khaddafi, et alia.)

Some blogs took time out from the Mideast to celebrate the coup. "LYNNE KIESLING WRITES: 'Freedom and global markets bring down another dictator!'" cheered Instapundit on the 12th. Kiesling, director of economic policy at the Reason Public Policy Institute, elaborated: "At this point it remains unclear what will happen with the oil industry in Venezuela, but Chavez's removal opens new opportunities for freedom and markets in Venezuela, in the oil industry and beyond."

What "beyond" might mean in a military takeover was left hanging, but the prospect of cheap oil was on everyone's mind. Chavez had been command-economizing the country's oil resources, even following OPEC guidelines to use crude as an instrument of policy. On his departure, and the installation of Pedro Carmona Estanga (head of the Venezuelan equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce) at El Presidete, oil prices plummeted, and businessmen cheered. OPEC would be flaunted, not the market. Yahoo News reported that "the head of sales at state company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said after Chavez's ousting that production should be set according to market conditions and not OPEC quotas. 'Let's not talk about quotas. Let's talk about the possibilities Venezuela has in the petroleum business,' Edgar Paredes told reporters at a press conference."

Bliss it was to be alive then. But events move faster than talking heads can talk, particularly during weekends, and by Monday all was ashes, as Chavez had returned to Milaflores, allegedly chastened but in charge.

Instapundit went silent on Venezuela. Others, their hearts perhaps broken, blogged Chavez only desultorily. Inevitably, conspiracy theories began to crop up. This from John J. Miller at the NRO blog on Monday:

Stephen Johnson of the Heritage Foundation has been an outstanding source of information and analysis on Venezuela over the last few days. In a conversation with me on Friday, he predicted serious difficulties for Ramona's transition government, suggesting it wasn't prepared to take power. In today's Wall Street Journal, he floats a fascinating if speculative idea: the possibility that Chavez "cleverly manipulated events aimed at isolating and discrediting his opponents." In other words, Chavez staged his own coup in order to strengthen his grip on power.

Opinion Journal, meanwhile, sighed wearily and took the long view: "Successive Venezuelan governments have failed to make the country attractive for investment." OJ even saw irony in the situation: "There's no denying that had not a substantial number of Venezuelans shown more respect for democracy than Mr. Chavez ever has, the coup would have succeeded." Later, OJ's Tunku Varadaranjan filed a piece claiming that Venezuelans are just no damn good: "Never have I encountered a national character that is so feckless, and so indolent, as the Venezuelan one." So, you see, they don't even deserve a coup.

The Organization of American States is still on the case; on Monday it dispatched a mission to Venezuela "to explore how the OAS can support Venezuela in its efforts to strengthen democracy." Interested observers can stay on it, too, at El Sur, a site unfriendly to Chavez but diligent in its reporting. The usual blogspects will likely stay cool on coups for a while.