Bush is the devil

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the U.N. today. The AP has more here. (And, no, I'm not pulling a Ratzinger-Benedict. You know, making a point with a quotation, then hiding behind the quotation. That sort of thing. Let me be clear: I don't think Bush is the devil.)

The fact that Chavez received some applause in response to the devil remark says something about the U.N., or at least about some of its sovereign member-states. This was, after all, an address to the U.N. General Assembly.

Readers of this blog will know that I don't much care for Bush and that I have been relentlessly critical of his foreign policy, but it's demagogic hyperbole to say that the U.S. seeks what Chavez called the "domination, exploitation, and pillage of peoples of the world". Then again, Chavez rules by demagogic hyperbole.

Ambassador John Bolton was quite right to point out that "the people of Venezuela don't have free speech". At the invitation of the international community, and to much of that community's pleasure, Chavez can say what he wants. The Venezuelan people, alas, are not so fortunate.

Such is the glory of Hugo Chavez, tyrant.

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Chavez's speech is (curiously) not yet available in text form at the U.N. website. But you can watch the video. See here. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela comes right after the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and right before the Republic of Maldives. Other notable speakers today included Karzai, Bachelet, Prodi, Kirchner, and Livni.

For more, see Taylor Marsh, HuffPo, and The Gun Toting Liberal.