Porque no te callas!

Awkwaaaaaard.

This is ALMOST as good as him calling Uribe his "hermano" after the Betancourt rescue. I mean... just this January he did ask the FARC to be taken off the terror list because they are a "noble" and "Bolivarian" force which he respects. His words. Not mine.

But I must wonder... without a slew of conservative leaders (other than the US) to bad mouth like Uribe and Juan Carlos, what will Chavez do? Is there some kind of group that he can focus the hatred of his countrymen on to distract them from the failure of his economic and social policy? Some kind of group who he could foment profound bigotry toward as being rich conspiratorial oppressors? A group that lives within his own fronteras? A group with a history of being hated for political use? Who indeed?

From the Wall Street Journal (linked above):
Since Mr. Chávez took the oath of office at the beginning of 1999, there has been an unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism throughout Venezuela. Government-owned media outlets have published anti-Semitic tracts with increasing frequency. Pro-Chávez groups have publicly disseminated copies of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," the early-20th-century czarist forgery outlining an alleged world-wide Jewish conspiracy to seize control of the world. Prominent Jewish figures have been publicly denounced for supposed disloyalty to the "Bolívarian" cause, and "Semitic banks" have been accused of plotting against the regime. Citing suspicions of such plots, Mr. Chávez's government has gone so far as to stage raids on Jewish elementary schools and other places of meeting. The anti-Zionism expressed by the government is steadily spilling over into street-level anti-Semitism, in which synagogues are vandalized with a frequency and viciousness never before seen in the country.

Keep in mind, there are certain groups on college campuses who are showing video propaganda glorifying Chavez and his "revolution of the poor."

El rey Juan Carlos hit it on the head earlier:
Hugo, porque no te callas.