A Blowhard, Okay, But With His Heart In Right Place
I shared my final thoughts last night about Venezulean president Hugo Chavez. He died a few hours ago. This N.Y. Times video commentary by former Venezuelan correspondent Simon Romero sounds fair and balanced, but my heart agrees with what Chavez’s former friend and friendly portraitist Oliver Stone told TheWrap‘s Tim Kenneally.
”I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place,” Stone said. “Hated by the entrenched classes, Hugo Chavez will live forever in history.” Notice that Stone didn’t call Chavez a “great hero” by his own standards — he called him “a great hero to the majority of his people.”
“His life was in a manner of speaking gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a man.” — William Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar
Chavez with Ahmadinejad:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/chavez-hosts-close-ally-ahmadinejad.aspx?pageID=238&nid=23872
Iran Hangs Three Men For Having Gay Sex
http://gawker.com/5837835/iran-hangs-three-men-for-having-gay-sex
Iran hangs gay teens
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071902061.html
Chavez was chummy with evil dictators. So what? It’s something many 20th century U.S. presidents were guilty of. Hell, some of our presidents even INSTALLED the dictators.
Jeff is looking to drive traffic by saying a really despicable guy who avidly supported some of the most destructive monsters, I mean UNIVERSALLY REVILED INDEFENSIBLE BUTCHERS OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE had his heart in” the right place.”
So let’s see if he can garner a nice 50-100 comments saying, “No he fucking didn’t have his heart in the right place.”
He was as Gabriel Garcia Marquez opined, in the end “just another despot.”
Who suppored Assad, Mugabe, Ghaddafi and others with every fiber of his crooked, cynical being.
As for (the legions of) American leaders who’ve done similar shit, we can assume no one here will defend any of them by saying “their heart was in the right place?”
I think Bobby Rogers had his heart in the right place. Put on a Miracles record and lament his loss. RIP
a country rich in oil reserves with such a pathetic health system that he had to get competent medical treatment abroad. a criminal and an idiot.
Gaydos’ comment (#3) is interesting, because, as should be obvious, “a really despicable guy who avidly supported some of the most destructive monsters, I mean UNIVERSALLY REVILED INDEFENSIBLE BUTCHERS OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE” is a great description of, for example, Ronald Reagan, with Montt, Savimbi, Hekmatyar, and Zia ul-Haq in place of Assad, Mugabe, and Ghadafi.
If publicly, financially, and militarily supporting despotic butchers is a deal-breaker (and it is), then fine, but the holier-than-thou attitude most Americans have and are projecting toward Chavez is embarrassing.
I also find it disappointing that his autocratic tendencies are rounded up to dictatorship by commentators in this country over and over again, despite the fact that he was deeply popular for much his presidency and re-elected regularly. Again, not to excuse his curtailing of opposition activities and media, but compared to the US-backed despots South America has seen in the last thirty years (Pinochet, the Argentinian junta, etc. etc.), it’s pretty obvious progress that Chavez is the worst “tyrant” Latin America had the last few years.
I agree his heart’s in the right place — inside a coffin. ZING!
“a country rich in oil reserves with such a pathetic health system that he had to get competent medical treatment abroad.”
Uh… “competent medical treatment abroad”?! He was being treated in CUBA. That’s like some former NBA star and recovering alcoholic going to the most impoverished, miserable nation on the planet just to party with its crazed dictator.
Oh.
Mr. Gaydos — I myself would never raise a glass of anything with Assad or “I’m a dinner jacket” or any of the other monsters of the world, and I frown on anyone doing that. I just want to make that clear. I suspect that Chavez got into the habit of befriending these gross uglies because he was virulently anti-U.S and and anti-imperialist and so are they. (To varying degrees.) Being in that particular club, I’m guessing, cuts a lot of political, ethnic or even ethical ties. You’ve heard the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? This wouldn’t be the first time someone in a high political realm thought that way.