Venezuela

"Chavez inspires left but [is] no icon," insists the headline for a February 21 story by Reuters reporter Frank Jack Daniel. Daniel took time to examine what role Chavez could play in rallying Latin American leftists now that the Fidel Castro has kindly retired to let little hermano Raul take the wheel for a while indefinitely.Daniel practically makes Chavez sound like the Barack Obama of Latin…

On February 18, the Zenit News Service reported that the apostolic nunciature in Caracas, Venezuela - the Holy See’s equivalent of an embassy in the country - was bombed on Thursday [February 14]. The bombing "caused only minor damages. The facade of the structure was also vandalized by political graffiti." The Zenit story was one of only four items on the bombing that came up during a Google…

During a two part interview on the Thursday and Friday CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Hugo Chavez’s ex-wife, Marisabel Rodriguez, "Is Hugo Chavez a charismatic leader or a mad man?" This was followed later by the question, "Is he a Communist?" To which Marisabel Rodriguez responded: "If he's not, he's very similar to one."Maggie Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, had several…

One of the most liberal newspapers in America recently mocked "celebrities making asses of themselves...hanging out with the world's most notorious dictators and other authoritarian figures." One such a-a-actor, Sean Penn, who has actually written for the paper in question, struck back Monday by calling the outlet "lame-brain," "desperate," and having "become Mad Magazine for small-minded…

After the Venezuela referendum, I 'd been waiting for the first MSMer to make an invidious comparison between Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush.Didn't take long:"[D]emocracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America."That's Roger Cohen writing in today's New York Times, reacting to Chavez's apparent acceptance of the referendum results that turned thumbs…

The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post are all referring to a package of recently-defeated Venezuelan constitutional amendments as "reforms." In reality, those so-called reforms were all bent on amassing more power and influence in the hands of Hugo Chavez. Washington Post's Juan Forero gave readers early of the December 3 Home Edition article (published before the outcome…

Hugo Chavez and Mahmound Ahmadinejad attended the OPEC summit, where they said the fall of the dollar is a sign that "the U.S. empire is coming down."

Dictator-groupie Sean Penn told Australia's The Age that Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez is “much more positive for Venezuela than he is negative” and the Chavez-crafted constitution is “a very beautiful document.” Yes, that's the same leader who is a student of the Robert Mugabe School of Economics, shut down a TV station that criticized him and just installed himself El Presidente for life. …

Folksy can accurately describe many a politician, foreign or domestic. But a Fidel Castro-loving, Bush-hating, suppresser of free speech who has carte blanche to rule by decree? If you ask Reuters, well, yes. (h/t Taranto's November 15 Best of the Web).The November 13 article in question by writer Enrique Andres Pretel dealt with how Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is demanding an apology from Spain's…

New York Times Magazine published a rather fascinating article Sunday about the rise of nationalized oil throughout the world. Predictably, it initially came off as a love letter to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his new brand of oil socialism. Yet, if you dig deeper - unfortunately offshore deeper in a very lengthy piece - author Tina Rosenberg ended up rather dissatisfied with "petrocracy," and,…