It’s one bad guy calling another bad guy names. Why should I care?
I’ll never be mistaken for a fan of Bush, and I think referring to him as “the Devil” is ascribing a level of cleverness that he doesn’t deserve—but I found myself bristling when I read Chavez’s slurs. Could it be that I don’t hate America after all?
Doesn’t help that Hugo has the kind of face that looks best connecting repeatedly with a brass-knuckled fist.
Want to raise awareness of a country? Have the leader start spouting vurilent anti-American rhetoric.
Except for the usual election rumblings, Venezuela was off the map of mainstream US news for a long time. It wasn’t until Chavez’s rants starting to reach a fever pitch that “Caracas” became a common byline. I’m sure if the prime minister of … oh, Lesotho, starting to call Bush the “Dark Lord Beelzebub” or something like that, we’d pay attention to some African nation that was a tiny spot on the atlas before.
What bothered me wasn’t so much Chavez’s speech, but the applause it gathered.
How about try to topple him in a coup? Oh, jeez, yeah we already tried that. So Chavez holds a grudge because we fucked with him? So what? We try to illegally oust him from power, he calls Bush a devil. Should I get all het up about the latter?
What about it, Operation Dipshit? Was it a good thing for us to be involved in a coup attempt in Venezuela? Would you expect Chavez to come here and fellate Bush? Remember, not everyone shares your motivations, and might not like the taste of Bush-spooge. Bush is a piece of shit. I don’t really care if other people, especially those with first hand experience of Bush’s shiv in their back, call it like they see it.
Really? Gee, where was all this noble outrage last spring when talk show host Don Imus was calling Hillary Clinton “Satan”? I guess it’s only stimulated by blasphemous insults applied to Republican leaders, huh?
I heard the Republicans call my President (one I liked) a murderer, liar, thief & every slanderous thing under Og’s heaven.
George W Bush, through proxies, has knowingly falsely slandered military heroes for short-term political gain.
I, myself, have called Bush far worse than a devil.
No skin off my nose.
Truth ought to trump jingoism. Obviously, in many a case, mindless nationalism holds the trump card.
Glad to see that it can still cut to the core.
Truth ought to trump jingoism. Obviously, in many a case, mindless nationalism holds the trump card.
Glad to see that it can still cut to the core. Don’t like The Trurth about your nation, quit whining, or worse, chest-thumping: fix it.
Working on it. Takes a while.
Burnoosed CIA operator in Chavez’s dark bedroom to Chavez: “Ever been to a Turkmenistani prison?”
All politics are local, and Chavez’s increasingly clownish behaviour is meant primarily for a Venezuelan audience.
He gets attention and good PR at home for blasting Bush. The fact that he’s getting more and more histrionic in his comments suggests that it’s having less and less impact at home.
Is Chavez actually getting “more and more histrionic in his comments”? The “devil” crack seemed about par for the course for Chavez on Bush.
Already last November he was calling Bush “a madman, a killer and a mass murderer” and in January “the worst terrorist in the world”.
ISTM that Chavez has been using histrionic rhetoric about Bush for a long time, but this was just the first instance of it that a large number of Americans had occasion to notice.
As RickJay said in his quote of Tip O’Neill, " All politics are local." The fact that more than the local audience heard him is mostly irrelevant, though it gets him an audience. That his supporters and voters heard what they think, though it may take it a few steps beyond their original thought, is what’s important because it is they who can re-elect him. If a politician has to stay in office by demonizing someone he has to keep upping the ante. The best way to dismiss him as the moron he is is by folding and ignoring him.
Wow, my most successful pit ever. 
From the OP:
The United Nations is not our house. Chavez has as much right to speak there as does Bush.
Pretty pathetic, that.
Is Bush your daddy?
What idiocy. I don’t have to loathe myself to not take it personally when somebody insults the president of my country, even if it was one I liked.
In most instances, the distinction between candor and insult is broad and plain, in the case of GeeDubya it gets down to micrometer tolerances.
Ripper, pitting Chavez would be a waste of time because he’s a self-mockery. It’s the same reason I wouldn’t pit you. Everybody knows Chavez is an asshole, everybody knows you’re an asshole. It’s redundant. You do get points for not even pitting him yourself, but instead resorting to that whiny “why aren’t people pitting this guy?” passive-aggressive shit.