Nixon and Eisenhower shook hands with the mass murderer Kruschev, and Reagan all but kissed Gorbachev at a time when the Soviet empire still enslaved millions. Chavez is a nutcase and a tyrant, but comparing his crimes to the above-mentioned tyrants who were embraced by former Republican presidents is like comparing an ant to a wooly mammoth.
(Anthony Gregory reminds me that Nixon also went to China to shake the hand of the biggest mass murderer of the 20th century,if not of all centuries, Mao).
8:43 pm on April 20, 2009