El Loco outreach suspended in Boston

NY Post Editorial:

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez fashions himself as many things: statesman, revolutionary and sworn enemy of American "imperialism," to name a few.

But how about as Santa Claus?

That's what former congressman and Kennedy scion Joseph Kennedy II is hoping - though plummeting oil prices may ground St. Hugo's sleigh this year.

Kennedy, see, is chairman of Boston-based Citizens Energy, a nonprofit that doles out cut-rate heating oil to low-income Americans courtesy of Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company.

That's to say, he's a tool employed to push Chavez's most cherished propaganda stunt - a gesture of "solidarity" with the American people that's won the thug accolades from all manner of far-left fellow travelers, even as his own people languish in poverty.

Or, at least, Kennedy was a tool: Citizens Energy announced yesterday that falling oil prices have forced Citgo to suspend the program - prompting Kennedy to urge fuel recipients to write to Chavez to tell him what a "difference" he's made.

Good luck with that.

...

Lower oil prices are a real inconvenience to Chavez propaganda spending. I had seen where he had cut back in South America, but this is the first I have seen that he has cut back in Boston. I guess the liberals up there will just have to live with lower fuel prices delivered by the market instead of a thug from Venezuela.