Who are you calling Mr. Danger?
By AcademicElephant | Elephants in Academia
21.09.05 | It turns out that Hugo Chavez did not go to Columbia University
yesterday to address their third annual "World Leaders Forum" because
of "an unforeseen conflict with a meeting just scheduled by
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan." Or because of
security concerns. But certainly not because this Ivy League university
realized it was inappropriate to have Chavez on campus.
Meanwhile, PachyBro emailed me this interview
with Chavez from Fortune. It has the sensationlist headline "Oil Could
Rise Above $100," which, it turns out, is not economic forecasting by
Fortune's crack experts, but rather Chavez' prediction of what will
happen should the U.S. displease him. He goes on to declare that "[t]he
U.S. government is a threat to us and to the world," and that "...Mr.
Bush has converted the U.S. into a terrorist state." He laughingly
concludes with an explanation of why he calls President Bush "Mr.
Danger:" "[i]t's a reference from a wonderful Venezuelan novel. There's
a character named Mr. Danger." Chavez refers here to Ramulo Gallegos'
1944 Doņa Barbara, in which the henchman Mister Danger buries another character (and his horse) alive. Some joke.
Just in case you want to know what Chavez' own people think of his "serious government," Publius Pundit has this chilling piece on how 2% of the Venezuelan population applied
for passports to get out of the country the day it was announced that
there was enough paper to print them. Chavez is a menace now, and will
only become more so after the December elections, which may well be
Venezuela's last while he is in power.
Senator Arlen Specter
and Columbia University need to explain to me exactly why we should
cozy up to this man. Or get their collective heads out of the sand and
stop undermining the efforts of those who are trying to oppose him.
For what it's worth, when Chavez left the U.S., he did not return to Caracas. He went to Havana instead.
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