Maybe he should stay home for awhile

I originally wrote this on November 29th. I'm bumping this up because of something Sue Bob wrote. Go read: "Was There More To the Chilean Incident Than Met the Eye?"

. . . . . . . . .

From 11/29/04

Colombia's defense minister, Jorge Alberto Uribe, said last Friday that Colombian rebels from a group called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were instructed to attack President Bush during his stopover there on November 22nd. But today the government of Colombia backed away from that claim.

Defense Minister Jorge Uribe told reporters Friday that informants said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, instructed followers to "assassinate President Bush" during his visit in the seaside city of Cartagena Nov. 22, where he met with President Alvaro Uribe.

The defense minister, who is no relation to the president, did not say where the information came from, and there was no indication Bush's life was ever in any danger: He was protected by 15,000 Colombian troops and police, U.S. troops and Secret Service agents during his 3 1/2-hour visit to Colombia.

Interior and Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt played down the comments Monday, saying he had no information about any assassination plot against Bush.

"There is nothing specific," Pretelt told The Associated Press. "What these terrorists organizations normally try to do is disturb the visits of any head of state . . . like President Bush. But we took all (security) measures, and there was no disturbance."

The defense minister told reporters Monday he did not want to elaborate on his earlier comments, but his spokeswoman indicated he had either misspoken or been misunderstood.

Okay, so maybe there was a plot, . . . maybe there wasn't. But if you factor in the Secret Service scuffle at the APEC conference in Chile, and the state dinner that was cancelled because the Chilean president didn't want his guests to have to go through metal detectors, . . . well, it seems to me that President Bush should probably avoid traveling in South America right now; perhaps Venezuela in particular.