Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has made this UN General Assembly an event to remember, referring to President Bush as “the devil.” Interesting that he should resort to religious symbology. During Ahmadinejad’s recent Venezuela visit, Chavez declared that Islam is “revolutionary.” (In fairness, he said the same of Christianity, though he probably didn’t have “Jesus Camp” in mind.) Marc Cooper notes that Chavez also called the UN “worthless,” a view he apparently shares with our own John Bolton.
NPR reported this a.m. that Chavez received a standing ovation after his speech at Cooper Union. Like many of those doing the applauding, Chavez represents the authoritarian, nonprogressive wing of the left. The world leaders he champions — Castro, Mugabe, Qadafi, Ahmadinejad, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus — are trampling on the rights of their people. It may be emotionally satisfying to applaud Chavez’s anti-Bushism, but one must look squarely at what Chavez is for, not just what he is against. The same is true when evaluating the far-left sects in this country: The World Can’t Wait (Revolutionary Communist Party), ANSWER (Ramsey Clark/International Action Center), the International Socialist Organization and so forth. There can be little doubt that these groups led the cheering section in CU’s Great Hall.
Chavez very much needs Bush. He exploits Bush’s (entirely justified) unpopularity in ways that are masterful, but also insidious. He can say things about Bush he could never say about any Democrat. In America, after six years of Republican rule by the worst president in our history, we’re all too ready to indulge a character like this. Behind Chavez’s overbaked rhetoric is something one can’t wave aside: Our president is harming the foundations of the republic, assiduously, every day. Go here to see him dodge, spin, and carry on like an insane person on the subject of torture and the Geneva Conventions.
But Chavez is not the alternative — he’s a friend to antidemocratic thugs the world over. His foreign policy is as manically self-interested as those he criticizes. Yet with the aid of deluded propagandists like Harry Belafonte, Chavez has convinced many on the left that he is a human-rights champion. Just last night in an elevator, I heard several music students quoting his “devil” remark with delight. Chavez’s moral credibility is becoming conventional wisdom. It’s in fact nonsense.
[P.S. Here is a sycophantic account of Chavez’s Cooper Union speech. I liked this:
“Chavez thanks The Global Women’s Strike for their hard work, and Mary and the others jump up with their banner of support. He thanks others, including a contingent of rabbis with buttons, ‘A JEW NOT A ZIONIST.’ The youngest rabbi runs a giant bouquet to the stage, which the police shift and block.”
I don’t like the way the term “self-hating Jew” gets thrown around, but in this case the shoe might really fit.]
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