Spain's King becomes hero to many

Barry Casselman:

A few days ago, Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain hosted a conference of leaders of Spanish-speaking countries in Chile. Among those attending was that democratically-elected gangster Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela (but soon to be dictator). Mr. Chavez loves to make long anti-American leftist harangues, and
when his turn came to speak, he decided to go after former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a long-time ally of the U.S. who, when in office, supported President Bush in Iraq. Mr. Zapatero, a socialist, defeated Mr. Aznar (and the two remain bitter opponents), but he found himself defending his rival to Mr. Chavez as "a man who was elected by the Spanish people." Mr. Chavez does not care about this principle (he said he will sidestep the Venezuelan constitution to stay in office beyond the alloted two terms), and kept interrupting Mr. Zapatero (a fellow socialist) in a most boorish fashion.

Finally, a man seated next to Mr. Zapatero, leaned over and in a loud vice said to Mr. Chavez, as if they were two men in a working class tapas bar in the Madrid rastro (flea market), "Why don't you shut up?" ("Por que no te callas?")

The man, of course, was the Spanish head of state, King Juan Carlos, and not one known for crude talk. Nevertheless, his riposte has now become a cheer throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and in not a few other places as well.

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After the king's retort to Mr. Chavez, some Spanish commentators suggested it was not dignified for the king to speak in this way, as if he was making it into a street fight. Numerous British left-wing media and other continental commentators actually took Chavez's side. (This should be no surprise, considering the venomous hatred of the U.S. in European media circles,) There has been very limited coverage of this story in American mainstream media.

But almost everywhere else, the king's rebuke has become a new rallying cry. In Venzuela, the oppositiion to Mr. Chavez has adopted "Por que no te callas?" as its slogan. A reggae ballad has already been composed, and along with videos of the incident, is available world wide on You Tube and its equivalents.

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I think his statement struck a cord because Chavez is crude buffoon who has made a practice of insulting people and his statement that about former Prime Minister Aznar was an insult to the Spanish people and its government. Finally someone said enough is enough to the crude insult artist. A lot of folks like me thought it was about time.

You can tell how much Chavez was strung by the remarks, by the fact that he could not let it go and he threatened Spain with economic consequences if there was no apology. That is typical of his bullying, especially since it was him that owed the apology to begin with.