Next to the Castro brothers, Hugo Chavez was the one leader in the Western hemisphere who could be counted on to be the party-pooper at the non-stop celebration of American exceptionalism that seems as natural to us as the air we breathe.
Chavez famously took the podium at the UN in 2006 and claimed he could "still smell the sulfur" left by George "the Antichrist" Bush the previous day.
Chavez had good reason to be bitter about American designs on his country. After all, it was the Bush administration that gave the nod and the wink to the 2002 coup that took Chavez out of power for two days. The coup unraveled as massive street demonstrations showed that Chavez was a hugely popular leader. Nonetheless, the lessons learned made the US backed coups in Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay in 2012 successful.
While Chavez may have distrusted the US administration, he seemed quite fond of Americans. The Venezuelan government has since 2005 delivered almost half a billion dollars in free heating oil to millions of needy Americans through it's CITGO subsidiary.
No wonder he was despised by America's ruling class.
And what a coincidence that on the very day Chavez goes to his reward, the Dow-Jones hits an all-time record high!
Coincidence?...
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