He's Baaaaack.

The man has more lives than a cat.

January 9, 2013: Officials on Tuesday confirmed that medical treatment in Cuba will keep Chavez from being sworn in for his new term this week.

[...]

A statement from Venezuela's vice president read before lawmakers Tuesday said that the constitution authorizes "at a later date, the swearing-in before the Supreme Court."

[...]

Tuesday's debate became so heated that one member of the opposition accused Chavez's supporters of hurling a copy of the constitution at him.

Supporters of Chavez pumped their fists in the air and gave a standing ovation after passing a resolution affirming that Chavez could remain president and be away from the country for as long as necessary to deal with his illness.

[...]

Opposition lawmakers said in Tuesday's debate that Chavez should be declared temporarily absent from his presidential post to avoid a power vacuum.

  CNN

January 9, 2013: Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled that Chavez will begin a new term on Thursday, even though health problems will prevent him from attending an inauguration before the National Assembly.

  CNN

February 18, 2013: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return from Cuba on Monday more than two months after surgery for cancer that has jeopardized his 14-year rule of the South American OPEC member.

The 58-year-old socialist leader's homecoming in the middle of the night implies some medical improvement - at least enough to handle a flight of several hours - and will inspire supporters' hopes he could return to active rule.

[...]

"We have arrived back in the Venezuelan fatherland. Thanks, my God! Thanks, my beloved people! Here we will continue the treatment," Chavez said via Twitter after flying in.

  Reuters

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Prize winning Colombian author, flew with Chavez before "El Comandante" first won the presidency. "I was struck by the impression that I had traveled and talked delightfully with two opposite men," Marquez wrote. "One who good luck had given the opportunity to save his nation -- and the other, an illusionist, who could go down in history as just another despot." 

  alJazeera

In 2004, I traveled to Venezuela with a humanities group on a tour designed to look at the role of the media in politics. The tendency within the mostly leftist group was to view Chavez as a superhero. While that was understandable, considering the programs he had recently installed to help end poverty in the country (not to mention his charisma at that period of his life - if you watch "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", you can't help but fall in love), Garcia-Marquez' description is the impression that I came away with, and I think Chavez is now running dangerously close to the latter. If not, he might have been the only person in history to gain such power and avoid ignobility.

And, it seems likely to me that if we in this country continue on our destructively contentious party politics, the end result will be a move to change our constitution to allow for unlimited presidential terms.  Just another step in our continuing path to becoming a third world country.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.