When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died last week, most people in the U.S. weren’t upset.
That’s because Chavez was a man who was concerned with staying in power at any cost, which he did by implementing socialistic policies that empowered the poor at the expense of just about everyone else in the country.
This didn’t stop the praise showers from some of our country’s “thought leaders.”
“The people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had,” according to actor Sean Penn. “I lost a friend I was blessed to have.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered a eulogy at Chavez’s funeral. He made sure to mention that Chavez was a “great leader,” and that “we do mourn” his loss.
To get an idea of who else shares these silly feelings about Chavez, look no further than Cuban President Raul Castro or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said, “It is a great pain for us because we have lost a friend… His spirit and soul live on in each of our hearts.”
Chavez joins a long list of despots praised by some of the — hopefully under-informed — members of the far left.
Mao Zedong, first chairman of the Communist Party of China, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara and dictatorial Cuban President Fidel Castro also enjoy support from this segment of the population.
Like the individuals mentioned above, Chavez took drastic steps to silence any opposition to his administration.
In 2009, Chavez oversaw the implementation of a change in Venezuela that got rid of term limits for his position as well as for all other elected officials.
He was also responsible for doing all in his power to control Venezuelan media.
Chavez not only closed more than 30 radio stations as well as some television and print news organizations, but he also took control state media during elections to control the flow of information.
At one point, Chavez tried to force cable channels to air an hour of government programming each day. Guess who was responsible for that content.
Chavez also made a habit out of having his critics — media members, political opponents, activists and generally educated people — thrown into jail for publicly stating their opposition.
He was also notoriously anti-American.
“Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush,” Chavez said at the United Nations in 2006. “The devil [Bush] came here yesterday. It smells of sulfur still.”
For those lefties who hate Bush and agree with Chavez on this, his opinion of President Obama wasn’t much different.
They say you can tell a lot about a man from the company he keeps, and Chavez had some pretty telling friends.
He was known to pal around with the likes of Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and the Castros.
But Chavez’s supporters do have something positive to look forward to.
Instead of being buried or cremated like a normal person, Chavez’s embalmed body is going to be displayed in a Venezuelan museum for all people to see — permanently, kind of like saints at the Vatican.
