washington post and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. eugene covered venezuela for the post in the 90s when he was working at the post s bureau in buenos aires. thanks for being here. it s great to be here, rachel. do you think that hugo chavez was effectively the monster that he was made out to be in this country? he was obviously cartoonishly oppositional to us, but that led to some cartoonish characterizing of him too, didn t it? it did. there was nobody quite like him. charismatic. he could act like a buffoon, but he was very smart and obviously, and tenacious and determined. was he a tyrant? you should remember he was democratically elected president of venezuela three times with healthy majorities. and it is very clear that he had popular support. why did he have popular support? because for many, many years, for many decades, the poor of venezuela had been ignored by a corrupt political class and
corrupt political class and business class that essentially lived very well on the proceeds of all that oil, allowing none of to it trickle down, or so little to trickle down that the slums of caracas were just horrible places, violent places seething with anger. and what chavez could do was connect with those people. and give them hope, and then give them actual benefits in the form of health clinics and educational service they never had before. he paid attention to people who had been the left behinds, and they rewarded him with their very loyal support. in terms of the criticism directed towards chavez as being essentially somebody who did not advance freedom in his country, even as he did advance economic populist aims, what do you make of those criticisms? well, they have some merit. he leaned on, coerced,
washington post and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. eugene covered venezuela for the post in the 90s when he was working at the post s bureau in buenos aires. thanks for being here. it s great to be here, rachel. do you think that hugo chavez was effectively the monster that he was made out to be in this country? he was obviously cartoonishly oppositional to us, but that led to some cartoonish characterizing of him too, didn t it? it did. there was nobody quite like him. charismatic. he could act like a buffoon, but he was very smart and obviously, and tenacious and determined. was he a tyrant? you should remember he was democratically elected president of venezuela three times with healthy majorities. and it is very clear that he had popular support. why did he have popular support? because for many, many years, for many decades, the poor of venezuela had been ignored by a corrupt political class and