Carlos Guiterrez on Colombian radio; endorses John McCain

Sort of.

So Carlos Gutierrez was on Colombian radio this morning, speaking to one of Bogota’s top news radio outlets, Caracol, and much to the surprise of the radio hosts, he openly expressed his support for John McCain.

I say (and they said themselves) surprise, because there’s a sense of composure and independence in Colombian politics, where candidates or government officials rarely publicly and openly endorse and/or campaign for another candidate.

But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Dario Arizmendi, the program director at Caracol Radio is as vociferous an outlet for President Alvaro Uribe’s government as there is in Colombia, and as we all know, Bush ergo McCain are buddy buddy with Uribe.

The topic of discussion was the free trade agreement so many Colombians are clinging (bitterly) to, but that has stalled in a Democratic-led Congress, and is opposed as it currently is worded by Barack Obama.

As a result, the Colombian press has leveled a systematic campaign of biased coverage of the election, even after news broke out that the Colombian military had engaged in one of the most atrocious violations of human rights: kidnapping innocent young men, murdering them, and presenting them as Guerrilla kills.

Truth is, Colombian’s are so conditioned to violence, the sheer graveness of these egregious acts (which echo the epochs of terror in Argentina and Chile during the 20th century) passes unnoticed.

Peg me a cynic, but I’d bet most Colombians would cheer a McCain-as-president Free Trade agreement, than have a thorough investigation of human rights violations. Even as Obama cited less grave, but equally chilling, violations of human rights abuses as the x factor in his opposition to the pact.