For years American President George Bush has been the object of amenity for Latin American socialist leaders and their supports as an imperial capitalist. But not so anymore. In tongue-and-cheek fashion Latin America’s socialists have been welcoming who they now call Comrade Bush into their camp in light of the extensive nationalization the Bush administration has embarked on in the past few days.

A Nicaraguan Sandinista congressman appropriately named Edwin Castro recently summed up the view of the Bush administration’s recent policies among leftists in the region: “One of our economists was telling us that Bush has just implemented communism for the rich.”

There is a lot of schadenfreude among left-wing governments in the region as they watch the economic crisis in the United States unfold and the subsequent response of the nation that has been the most staunch in its support of IMF liberalization policies now end up contradicting many of them.

Particularly the rule to abstaining interfering in the market through government nationalization. “We think the Bush administration should follow the same policies that they and the International Monetary Fund have always told us to follow when we have economic problems — a structural adjustment that requires cutting government spending and reducing the role of government,” Mr. Castro advised.

And Latin America’s biggest leftist icon, Venezuela’s Hugh Chavez, could not bare to sit this one out: “If the Venezuelan government, for example, approves a law to protect consumers, they say, ‘Take notice, Chavez is a tyrant!’Or they say, ‘Chavez is regulating prices. He is violating the laws of the marketplace.’

How many times have they criticized me for nationalizing the phone company? They say, ‘The state shouldn’t get involved in that.’ But now they don’t criticize Bush for having nationalize... the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you?” Mr. Chavez made his statements in mocking fashion on his weekly television show in front of a laughing audience.

But not all Latin American’s are so welcoming to the new economic-interventionist Bush. When one Peru congresswomen compared Bush to socialist Bolivian President Eva Morales, the Bolivian ambassador to Venezuela took issue. He stated, “He’d have to be re-born to imitate Evo!”

Although President Bush has admittedly undertaken the largest nationalization project ever embarked upon by a government, his administration has presented and justified the government bailouts and nationalizations on the grounds of saving capitalism and preventing a world-wide depression. Latin American socialist, on the other hand, have no time for saving capitalism, a system they see as evil.

Manuel Sutherland, an official at the Latin American Association of Marxist Economists, though noting that Bush had undertaken some policies that make him in a way a team player, he still was not allowed into the club of Marxists. “He carries out nationalizations to save capitalism, we want to sink it,” said Mr. Sutherland. Maybe if Bush visits Latin America once more before his term is over he might find a more friendly welcome.