"Chavez makes near-daily speeches that run for hours, often reminiscing, lecturing about history, announcing news and breaking into song. His Sunday program can last six hours or more." LOL he is a comedian
It's interesting that the chavez defenders are so ready to excuse his repression. They are brought to tears by the thought that Bush put terrorists in a luxurious prison, but Chavez can shutter newspapers, commandeer the TV stations, outlaw criticism of himself, rig elections, fire or imprison judges who rule the "wrong" way,etc and all they can say is he is great because he gives away gasoline. The fact that he expropriated assets from oil companies after they had invested hundreds of millions of stockholders' money to develop them is seen as a good thing. After all, he did it for the poor. The scary thing is how much like him Obama is. In his first year in office, he nationalized two auto companies and stole the assets of bondholders to give to his union supporters. Now he has control over both the financial and health care industries. Surely energy will be next.