Brazil: No recognition. Period.

Remember the reports that claimed to parse a Brazilian press spokesman as contradicting President Lula da Silva's eloquent "No, no, no, adamantly, no" response to whether they would recognize the November 29 elections?

Well, as the New York Times reports today, that parsing is being firmly rejected:

The president's position is clear...Brazil does not intend to recognize a government elected in a process that was organized by an illegitimate government.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

But watch for others to focus on a different statement, one that supports the pragmatic claim that Brazil (and everyone else) simply will have to recognize the Lobo government:

One thing is dealing with the fact that there were elections and another is recognizing the legitimacy of the elections...And for now, Brazil does not recognize that legitimacy.

Rather than accept the "no, no, no..." or the first sentence I quoted above, expect others to emphasize the phrase "for now".

Whereas what I find interesting about this second quote is that Brazil, apparently, can tell the difference between recognizing that a voting exercise took place, and accepting that it was legitimate.