NYT Magazine on Chavez

The NYT Magazine has a piece by David Rieff on Hugo Chávez, which is annoyingly bad. The primary problem many U.S. observers have is that they ascribe too much power and influence to Chávez, even believing a lot of what he says. In addition, there is a strong tendency to equate Chávez with Castro in his early years, even when the comparison just doesn’t work. The problems with this article are similar to those in a recent CNN article. So we learn that:

--Chávez is creating a “Soviet-style command economy.” Who knows, maybe someday, but Venezuela is still a very capitalist country.

--he plays the same role in 2007 as Fidel Castro did in 1967 as an “iconic” figure for the world. This is incredibly overstated—just look at polls showing what Latin Americans, for example, think of him. He certainly has supporters, but he is nowhere near Fidel in his prime.

--“the left-wing surge throughout Latin America continues unabated.” Oh man, are people still writing this sort of nonsense? He claims that this “Castroite Latin American left” will unite with Iran and Hezbollah in a global fight against the U.S.

His arguments require that you ignore Latin American (and even UN) resentment about Chávez’s meddling, ignore internal politics in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, ignore the intricacies of the Venezuelan economy, ignore the complexities of political shifts within Latin America, and that you swallow whole all the claims that Chávez makes.