Michelle Bachelet of Chile has just kicked Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez where it hurts again, and this isn’t the first time. Awhile back, the Venezuelan dictator said he wanted to ‘hug’ her and was met with stony silence. She’s been even more assertive on other fronts with him as well.

Today, she’s somehow gotten the message to the clown that he’s not to try to upstage her during her historic presidential inauguration on March 11. Chavez is to take no ‘awards,’ make no ‘speeches’ and pander to no local leftists who might want to ‘honor’ him. If he wants that, and isn’t really there for her inaugural, he can just go somewhere else.

Chavez is now trying to minimize this, and pretending nothing’s wrong. But we can all see what’s happening. She’s sent a message to this thug that she’s not going to be pushed around.

What does this mean for democratic revolution? It means that decent social democrats are a worse threat to the region’s leftist tyrants than anyone realizes. They are a worse threat than even head-on opponents from the right. Bachelet is separating herself from the leftist scrum that sets things on Chavez’s terms and declaring her own. Bachelet doesn’t play Chavez’s game and refuses to get sucked into his orbit. She is instead herself and she is tough enough to call this clown for the puny fool that he really is.

Michelle Bachelet rocks!

El Universal‘s got the awesome story here.