Chávez on dictatorship: "Who, me?"

This week has seen an overload of authoritarian irony. First, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, with a completely straight face, that he was the only "absolute and pure democrat" in the entire world, right before somewhat obscenely comparing himself to Mohandas Gandhi. Someone always has to try and one up the last guy in these sorts of contests, and Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chávez has accepted the challenge. Breezily denying that he's become a dictator, Chávez hinted that it would be easy for people to make that mistake because, well, there's a yanqui imperialist plot to depose him. Apparently, Chávez "sounded hurt" by the allegation that his regime has taken steps to obliterate political free speech in Venezuela, and did not, apparently, acknowledge the massive street protests that took place after he replaced Venezuela's oldest television network with a government propaganda channel.

In another bizarre bit of news about Chávez, Hugo's naked cock worship of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro shows no signs of slowing down. Following Fidel's recent Cuban television appearance, Hugo applauded the return of his idol, but apparently he's tired of Fidel's newfound penchant for Adidas tracksuits. Instead, Hugo wants Fidel to resume wearing his military fatigues. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to create their own Freudian postulate on why Hugo's so desperate to see Fidel don his classic authority figure outfit again. Daddy issues, anyone?