The left's useful idiots of Hugo Chavez

The Belmont Club:

A number of British personalities, including journalist John Pilger wrote the Guardian to announce their support for Chavez's shutdown of opposition TV stations. "We believe that the decision of the Venezuelan government not to renew the broadcasting licence of RCTV when it expires on May 27 ... is legitimate given that RCTV has used its access to the public airwaves to repeatedly call for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chávez."...

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Mostly Water, arguing the case for Chavez highlights the Venezuelan President's meekness:

What is truly amazing is that it has taken five years for the Chavez administration to take action in any way against media that helped carry out this coup. Certainly, if the same thing happened in the United States, it wouldn't be tolerated. Just ask Aaron Burr or Timothy McVeigh what happens when folks plot against the existing, elected government. The fact is.you don't get away with it, you get punished, and pretty severely. Getting their broadcasting licenses renewed would be the least of their problems.

That five-year inaction apparently includes Chavez failing to file any charges or win any convictions against RCTV. We are told RCTV is guilty -- and they might well be -- without ever being told who pronounced the guilt. But we know what Chavez is willing to go to court for. The Venezuelan government "filed charges against local network Globovision for what they said was indirectly encouraging Chavez's murder by airing footage of the 1981 assassination attempt on the late pope John Paul II. 'In my view, this television network, in this specific part of its programming, committed the offense of incitement to assassination, against the Venezuelan head of state," [Information Minister William] Lara said."

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My own personal opinion is that anyone would have to be a fool or on the Left not to recognize an incipient tyrant in Hugo Chavez. That does not necessarily mean that his opponents, like the owners of RCTV are honest or upstanding men. They may very well be thugs. That doesn't change the fact that Hugo Chavez is a thug as well. But it seems clear to me that the Left's criteria for judging fascisms is entirely partisan. Although they use such words as "democratically elected" or "legitimate" to justify Chavez, none of these words are really operative, except as protective coloration. What matters is that he is "their guy". He is their thug. Principle, clearly on the Left and possibly among conservatives too, runs a far second to belief.

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I think that also explains the silence of the left wing blogs in this country to the crushing of dissent in Venezuela. At his core Chavez is a bully and a coward. He relies upon insults rather than logic and when the going gets tough he is paranoid about being murdered. A profile in courage he is not. Courage is found among those who oppose him.