September 22, 2006
The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is just the latest in a long line of tin-horn dictators to address the United Nations. In his speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday, Chavez called President Bush “the devil.” He held up a book by the socialist Noam Chomsky and went on and on about how America is responsible for most of the problems in the world.
Give a guy some oil and he thinks he can play in the big leagues. Chavez is a pipsqueak who aligns himself with Castro of Cuba, Ahmadinejad of Iran and the gang in North Korea. These guys think they can strength by pulling America’s chain, but in reality they diminish themselves as they do nothing for their own people, except to shift blame for their failings.
Chavez would never allow the kind of speech he gave at the UN to be given about him in Venezuela. It’s always that way for despots. They come here and exercise freedoms no one enjoys in their countries.
Chavez may have done more harm than good for himself by his outrageous speech. Let’s hope it isolates him from all but the most fanatical of nations. Unfortunately, there are too many of them.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
