President Chavez Insults Angela Merkle

Have any fellow Dopers heard anything about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insulting German Chancellor Angela Merkle? (My apologies if I spelled her last name wrong.)

Supposedly, (according to a report from AP), he insulted her by saying something to the effect that her political party “shared the ideals of Adolph Hitler”.

If this is true, why would he say such a thing?

He’s taking up the left-wing, populist, anti-Western country position that was abandoned after Castro lost support from the Soviets. By strategically antagonizing some people he gains the support of others, the group that opposes the “establishment”. Notice that he only goes after “Old Europe” and the United States.

It’s posturing, nothing more. It gets him in the papers and keeps his face on the TV.

Google appears to still be up and operational.

It’s Merkel, incidentally (As a fellow Hamburger by birth I’d like to that to call her Merkle would be painting her as a Swabian, an insult if there ever was one (spoken as a Hamburger living in Swabia :wink: ))

It’s a very minor foreign news item here in Germany, and Mrs. Merkel seems to have decided not to make an issue of it (Chávez is considered a clown here anyway)

Chavez is considered a clown in most places.

Godwin!

You haven’t arrived until Chavez has taken a shot at you.

Heads up, Hugo:

Christian Democratic Union.

National Socialist German Workers Party.

It’s easy to get them confused.

First Bush grabs her then Chavez insults her. She’s gonna avoid this hemisphere entirely.

But not the circus! There he’s still a dick.

I chuckle every time I see the Heating Oil ads around Brooklyn. 1-800-Joe-4-Oil. It’s laughable that a country that can’t take care of it’s own people should give aid to the richest nation on the planet. Chavez is running his nation into the dirt, squandering record profits. It’s a damn shame, but I can’t help but chuckle when I see those ads.

This statement made no sense to me. Please explain?

The Joe-4-Oil phone number is for a subsidized oil program supported by Citgo, the state-owned Venezuelan oil company. In other words, the government of Venezuela is providing aid to poor(er) Americans. Many view this as a bit of political theater by Hugo Chavez, intended to make the U.S. look bad.

If so, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the Venezuelan economy, as mswas assumes. Depends on how big a bite it puts on the budget.

It’s not bad per se. I don’t think that this particular policy is hurting the Venezuelan economy. The thing is that there is this bit of political theater while Chavez’s policies in general are running his country into the ground.

What policies, and how are they hurting?

At least he refrained from berrating the Germans as Venezuela’scolonial oppressors

As Chavez-related news items go, that described in the OP is not really that important at all.

But this is.

I’ve been watching this myself. Chavez seems to have been deep in bed with Columbia’s worst elements. I’d say “rebel” is too kind a term here.