Kudos For Chavez ...
... From The Usual Suspects
Posted: March 9, 2013
Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez died earlier this week, and it did not take long for the encomiums to pour in, from the usual precincts.
From actor Sean Penn — of whom, it must be said, doesn’t know any better: “[T]he people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.”
And from Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., who purportedly should know better: “Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless.”
We get this from a man who should know better, President Jimmy Carter: “Rosalynn and I extend our condolences to the family of Hugo Chávez Frías. ... Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chávez’s commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.
“President Chávez will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment. ... Venezuelan poverty rates were cut in half, and millions received identification documents for the first time allowing them to participate more effectively in their country's economic and political life.”
Were it that Mr. Carter had been as nice about the death of his successor, Ronald Reagan. Noted The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, “Carter was considerably less effusive when Ronald Reagan died in 2004.”
These hosannas just go to show that there are none so deluded as those who choose to be deluded. “Champion” of the “powerless”? We expect this kind of nonsense from Hollywood celebrities, who have been singing the praises of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, for instance, since that pair of Communist murderers took over Cuba with the help of The New York Times’ Herbert Matthews. And like that of Castro and Guevara, Mr. Chavez’s sordid record speaks otherwise.
That record shows a committed totalitarian who rose to power democratically, at least ostensibly, but who ruled most undemocratically. His “gifts” to Venezuela: a judiciary wholly politicized, media and human-rights critics silenced, drug trafficking and terrorist activity condoned, a national murder rate ever on the rise, and poverty so grinding it mocks the efforts of the Penns and Serranos to bathe Mr. Chavez in salutary hues. Oh, and while he was allegedly empowering the poor he was amassing a personal fortune pegged at $1 billion, which he somehow forgot to “redistribute.”
And so his legacy, summed up by Rory Carroll, author of the recently released “Comandante,” is “a land of power cuts, broken escalators, shortages, queues, insecurity, bureaucracy, unreturned calls, unfilled holes, uncollected garbage.”
If anything remotely positive can be said of the man’s tawdry, tinhorn grip on Venezuela, conservative academic Paul Kengor has noted that, driven as Mr. Chavez may have been to emulate the excesses of his Marxist heroes, his efforts in that diabolical arena fell far short of Stalin, Mao, and Comrade Fidel.
That’s certainly damning with faint praise.
From actor Sean Penn — of whom, it must be said, doesn’t know any better: “[T]he people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.”
And from Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., who purportedly should know better: “Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless.”
We get this from a man who should know better, President Jimmy Carter: “Rosalynn and I extend our condolences to the family of Hugo Chávez Frías. ... Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chávez’s commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.
“President Chávez will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment. ... Venezuelan poverty rates were cut in half, and millions received identification documents for the first time allowing them to participate more effectively in their country's economic and political life.”
Were it that Mr. Carter had been as nice about the death of his successor, Ronald Reagan. Noted The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, “Carter was considerably less effusive when Ronald Reagan died in 2004.”
These hosannas just go to show that there are none so deluded as those who choose to be deluded. “Champion” of the “powerless”? We expect this kind of nonsense from Hollywood celebrities, who have been singing the praises of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, for instance, since that pair of Communist murderers took over Cuba with the help of The New York Times’ Herbert Matthews. And like that of Castro and Guevara, Mr. Chavez’s sordid record speaks otherwise.
That record shows a committed totalitarian who rose to power democratically, at least ostensibly, but who ruled most undemocratically. His “gifts” to Venezuela: a judiciary wholly politicized, media and human-rights critics silenced, drug trafficking and terrorist activity condoned, a national murder rate ever on the rise, and poverty so grinding it mocks the efforts of the Penns and Serranos to bathe Mr. Chavez in salutary hues. Oh, and while he was allegedly empowering the poor he was amassing a personal fortune pegged at $1 billion, which he somehow forgot to “redistribute.”
And so his legacy, summed up by Rory Carroll, author of the recently released “Comandante,” is “a land of power cuts, broken escalators, shortages, queues, insecurity, bureaucracy, unreturned calls, unfilled holes, uncollected garbage.”
If anything remotely positive can be said of the man’s tawdry, tinhorn grip on Venezuela, conservative academic Paul Kengor has noted that, driven as Mr. Chavez may have been to emulate the excesses of his Marxist heroes, his efforts in that diabolical arena fell far short of Stalin, Mao, and Comrade Fidel.
That’s certainly damning with faint praise.