For some reason, the Venezuelan Embassy in the United States sent me an email assuring me that despite the death of Hugo Chavez, “A special deployment of the Bolivarian National Police is expected to guarantee peace and respect for all Venezuelan people.”
I wonder how I came to be on their mailing list.
Back when he was thinking of running for president, I met with ex-Governor Mark Warner of Virginia in the lobby of a Philadelphia hotel. We talked about why Hugo Chavez was seen as such an enemy of the United States, and he agreed that it was really just “an energy issue.”
Chavez had a loud mouth and knew how to talk some serious smack, but he was never a threat to anyone in this country who doesn’t make a living in the upper echelons of the oil industry. Just don’t try to convince the wingnuts of that.
I’m probably going to be sickened in equal measure by how the far right and far left respond to his death. Kind of like it was with Gaddafi.
