Praiseworthy

The Council of Hemispheric Affairs is about as reliably leftist a voice on Latin America that you can find, so the praise that they heaped upon W's outgoing point man for the region, Thomas Shannon, is doubly meaningful:

Throughout his tenure, Shannon combined a sense of professionalism with a professed interest in not only encouraging democratic institutions throughout the region but also in promoting its economic development. From early on, Shannon rejected the confrontational and demagogic approach toward Latin American issues that all too often had been taken by his predecessors during the Reich-Noriega period, and he instead maintained a rational and non-ideological style of diplomacy. While U.S.-Latin America relations became increasingly tense during the past eight years, Shannon was uniquely able to reach out to a wide swath of leftist democratic hemispheric leaders by emphasizing areas of mutual interest when conflict seemed inevitable.