He plays well to the gallery: Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez pranced around the platform of the United Nations General Assembly in 2006, describing President George W. Bush as the devil — and Bush's nation as one on the way down. And just this June he broke into song during a speech to some of his still-fawning followers, saying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn't love him, and vice versa.

His defiance toward yanquis endears Chávez to lots of Latin America — especially Cuba and other countries he courts with petro-dollars. But his clown act, and his Simón Bolívar-as-a-socialist portrayal are wearing thin on many of his own people.

As for his Caribbean neighbor, Colombia, and his biggest oil customer, the U.S., ni hablar. Those shows are scant cover for one of our hemisphere's leading supporters of terrorism.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, just before leaving office, issued a report to the Organization of American States loaded with evidence that Chávez's regime sheltered and supplied the long-running Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — FARC, in its Spanish acronym.

This bunch is famed in its region as butchers of innocent civilians, kidnappers of officials and major traffickers in cocaine, heroin and other drugs. With the Uribe administration and U.S. military advisers making war on them in the southern jungles, the violentes sought — and found — friendly surroundings among Chávez's troops.

For Uribe's report, Chávez broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia — which he promptly renewed this week after Juan Manuel Santos replaced Uribe as president. Whether Chávez will, or can, clear the heavily armed FARC from the Venezuelan side of the two countries' mostly isolated borderlands remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton and the Barack Obama administration are preparing to send a new ambassador to Caracas — Larry Palmer, who has served as our emissary to Honduras.

In the course of Senate questioning before his confirmation, Palmer proved forthright when it came to knowledge of ties between his host-government-to-be and the Colombian guerrilleros. He was quite aware of them, said Palmer — and he knew, too, that two high-level Venezuelan officials are on our Treasury Department's list of drug traffickers. He also told the Foreign Relations Committee, in case its members didn't know it, that Venezuela and Cuba share intelligence.

Chávez quickly declared that Palmer had pre-judged Venezuela; for that, he wouldn't be accepted as ambassador.

To be sure, Palmer's honesty isn't the usual diplomatic schmooze; rather, it was an accurate description of the emperor's new clothes. Now that the world knows Hugo Chávez for what he is, could anyone serve as ambassador to his Venezuela? From anywhere?

Beyond the issue of terrorism, Chávez's brutal regime has come under heavy criticism from international human-rights organizations for its abuse of Venezuelan citizens.

Much as he tries cutting us off from his oil supplies, the U.S. remains his main customer; he needs us — and, for the while, it might be argued, we need him, or the resource he controls.

But do we need to honor him with an ambassador? As The Washington Post editorially notes, if ignoring the facts about Chávez is a requirement for ambassadorial relations, it would be better not to have them. Some Republicans already are echoing that sentiment.

Secretary Clinton should step into this breach — by way of Colombia's new president as well as by contact with Washington's Venezuelan embassy — by reaffirming her support of Ambassador Palmer and reminding Caracas that diplomacy — transparent diplomacy — is a two-way street.