From Mark Weisbrot:

One of the nice things about a blog is that you can provide a few details that don't fit in columns or op-eds that the mainstream press runs. Below is a column I wrote that ran during the past week in a number of US newspapers. It provides some background, missing from almost all press coverage, about why President Hugo Chavez might see George W. Bush as "the Devil:" namely, the Bush administration's involvement in the 2002 military coup that briefly overthrew Venezuela's democratic government, and the administration's continued intervention inside Venezuela, to this day.

President Hugo Chavez made an important and constructive speech at the UN. The US corporate media is now busily casting his address as "Extremist in Nature". President Bush also made a UN speech in which he presented such a distorted view of the world's condition that one must truly question his sanity. Chavez received 5 minutes of sustained applause; Bush got brief but polite ovation.

When the coup came in 2002, it certainly came as no surprise to the Bush administration.  They'd help to plan it, they knew it was coming, and they were on hand to provide color commentary and praise for the replacement leadership.  Elected president Hugo Chavez was out, Bush's chosen businessman Pedro Carmona was in, and the United States couldn't have been happier.

Then Chavez easily restored order and revealed US involvement.  Oops.

The question is why were they so anxious to go after this man?  Sure, Chavez has leftist leanings, and he has oil, but there are a lot of governments more openly inimical to our own in control of oil reserves.  Why is Chavez the focus of so much effort?   Why has Pat Robertson called for Chavez' murder, naming him a "dangerous enemy" of the United States.  Okay, there's the fact that Robertson is a fruit loop, but in this case, he may be right.

Hugo Chavez may be the most dangerous man in the world.