The Watch reports on that evil dictator currently ruling Venezuela, Hugo Chavez:
Chavez has not engaged in bloody pogroms. He has not turned the army back into the instrument of rural terror that it used to be. Has not, to my knowledge, pursued the detain-and-torture policies of the man he tried to overthrow. He did not take over by force television stations that broadcast all-coup-all-the- time programming, or violently break up the resultant protests that halted virtually every aspect of national commerce. All in spite of the fact that he has, at this point, the full loyalty of the military behind him. Something that other leaders in similar situations have abused no end.
In fact, such restraint is exceptionally rare in developing nations with income inequalities as bad as Venezuela’s. In the mid-90s, Brazil tried to solve the problem of too many street children by having the police shoot them. And they were just looking for a meal and somewhere to sleep. So really, in a region plagued by drug murders, guerilla kidnappings, paramilitary death squads, brutal police forces, peasants being poisoned with aerial pesticides, civil wars, etc., is the house arrest of someone known to have been plotting a coup that big a deal? Come on.
(He seems to be doing better than the current U.S. government in fact…)