Their favourite dictator

A.C. Clark’s book, The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Farce, documents how Chávez trashed a once rich county, Venezuela, and earned the admiration of professional socialists along the way.

“The Internet,” explains Clark “has allowed me to take full advantage of Chávez’s verbal incontinence. Thus, when I report that Chávez described a bout with diarrhea on national television, or asserted that gigantic camels live in the jungle, or when I say that indeed he pays homage to terrorists, I provide Internet links to footage of Chávez saying and doing these things.”

Clark (not his real name for safety reasons) was born and raised in Venezuela, but steadfastly refuses to exalt Chávez. And from carbon-hungry Hollywood to Red Cuba that’s a treasonous thought crime.

Granted, I’ve never felt that Chávez was level-headed. Ever. He dresses and sounds like a blathering idiot. This leaves one wondering why late night comedians aren’t living off his unintentionally comical speeches. There’s so much brilliant material, as Clark clearly demonstrates.

Team Bush caused hurricanes in the Caribbean? Certainly!

Nepotism is alive in Venezuela too thanks, in part, to a submissive media. Hugo’s older brother seems to score all these government jobs, like the secretary of education gig. Another position was even created for his brother Argenis, as deputy governor and secretary in the state of Barinas. His brother Adelis is a socialism-first banker, living off government accounts, of course. His brother Ignacio has been a councilman. His youngest brother, Anibal, just happens to be a mayor. And so on.

The serial adulterer (not that’s there’s anything wrong with that in Hollywood) lives like a petulant movie star. And his new wife certainly looks the part, according to critics. Writes Clark: “Now I have nothing against jewellery, luxury cars, or plastic surgery, but it is difficult to ignore the inconsistency between Chávez’s discourse against capitalism and consumerism, on the one hand, and the conspicuous consumption practiced by Chávez and his immediate relatives, on the other.”

It never ends. Chávez misspelled a common verb “adquirir (to acquire), as adquerir” at a pedagogical session, and insists that Venezuela’s literacy rate is high, against all facts. No problem though because Chávez always gives Chávez authority to change words.

And facts. The authoritarian taste tester pontificates about Eurocentric creations like Tarzan, Clark Kent, Mandrake the Magician, and even the Phantom, forgetting that they’re American, and not necessarily white. (Isn’t Superman Jewish?) Real cartoonish dictators are his friends, by the way.

In another case, he asked pupils, “Do you know what a camel is?” after misusing a gospel quote. One child replied, “Yes, it is an animal that lives in the desert,” to which Chávez added, “And, in the jungle, too, kiddo.” The leader explained that camels can be “as big as the [school’s] auditorium too.”

Just like the dinosaurs.

Chávez banned The Simpsons because they’re allegedly immoral, as opposed to the cult of Fidel Castro. After ordering the subversive cartoon family off air, Venezuelan television decided to replace them with Baywatch’s cartoonish babes for some questionable reasons only known to the dictator.