"Chavez Hysteria" Watch....

The latest installment. From the AP:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld likened Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Adolf Hitler, reflecting continuing tension in relations between the United States and the Latin American government.

Rumsfeld, asked during a National Press Club appearance Thursday about indications of a deteriorating general relationship between Washington and parts of Latin America, said he believes such a characterization “misses the mark.”

“We saw dictatorships there. And then we saw most of those countries, with the exception of Cuba, for the most part move towards democracies,” he said. “We also saw corruption in that part of the world. And corruption is something that is corrosive of democracy.”

The secretary acknowledged that “we’ve seen some populist leadership appealing to masses of people in those countries. And elections like Evo Morales in Bolivia take place that clearly are worrisome.”

“I mean, we’ve got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money,” Rumsfeld added. “He’s a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.”

Do we really need to spend time rebutting the inaccurate statement that Hitler was "elected legally"? That Rumsfeld would say it indicates he's either reckless or ignorant of German history; his ancestry is strongly German, so I doubt the latter. Why is this person still the Secretary of Defense?

Reality check: Hugo Chavez is a twice democratically-elected leader who has survived a referendum and a coup attempt that was at least tacitly supported by the United States. He is no less legitimate a president than George Bush, and far more so than many allies of ours including Mubarak and Musharraf. His approval rating is 70%---which must really eat at a White House stuck at 40%---and he's responsive, proactive and competent in a crisis. Read about that here, and here.

As the economy stalls, the stock market drifts and a nation in debt up to its eyeballs hits the downside of exhausted monetary and fiscal policy, expect much more of this sort of rhetoric. See, it's not really Chavez's oil. Oh sure, technically Venezuelans live on the land above the oil---much like Iran also "owns" its oil---but that oil represents our ability to print our way through deficits and preemptive wars. Of course that's a road that must be paved first, so the public needs to be prepared---gradually, via Hitler analogies and other assorted Saddam-redux demonizations---for the inevitable.