Hugo Chavez has been praised by
Congressman Jose Serrano,
former Congressman Joe Kennedy,
various European leaders, and others. Amazingly, while
eulogizing the Venezuelan strongman in The Nation, Greg
Grandin, who apparently teaches history at NYU and is a member of
the Academy of Arts & Sciences, lamented that Chavez wasn’t
enough of one:
Chávez was a strongman. He packed the courts, hounded
the corporate media, legislated by decree and pretty much did away
with any effective system of institutional checks or balances. But
I’ll be perverse and argue that the biggest problem Venezuela faced
during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he
wasn’t authoritarian enough. It wasn’t too much control that was
the problem but too little.
Intent, perhaps, on fortifying Chavez’s strongman legacy, the
Ministry of Defense
announced the army would be backing Chavez’s hand-picked
successor, Nicolas Maduro. Via
the AP:
In a late night tweet, Venezuelan state-television said
Defense Minister Adm. Diego Molero had pledged military support for
Maduro’s candidacy against likely opposition candidate Henrique
Capriles, despite a constitutional mandate that the armed forces
play a non-political role.
Related: Rand Paul is
currently in his third hour of filibustering (now joined by
Mike Lee as well as Ted Cruz) the nomination of John Brennan,
during which he explained the protections that exist for rights and
minorities in a republic but not a democracy.
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