Chavez: an avowed marxist. (Correction, Please!

ITEM: The Miami Herald reported on November 4, 2004 that President Bush "is likely to be tested in his second term by Venezuela's feisty President Hugo Chavez."

ITEM: The Financial Times on December 7, 2004 referred to Jorge Giordani as the "planning minister and economy guru for the populist Mr. Chavez."

CORRECTION: "Feisty," "charismatic," "populist," "independent," "maverick." These and similarly positive expressions seem to be the favorite adjectives of the mainline liberal-left media when describing Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. How about Communist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, Castroist, or, at least, Marxist?

Since 1995, Chavez has been a leader of the Sao Paulo Forum, an international network of terrorist groups and Communist parties founded by Fidel Castro as a successor to the Tricontinental, his more famous Havana-based terrorist operation of the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

On October 12, 1999, during a visit to Beijing, President Chavez announced: "I have been very Maoist all my life." After attacking "capitalismo savaje" (savage capitalism), Comrade Chavez told the press of his admiration for the "Great Helmsman," Communist China's mass-murderer Mao Zedong. In his rhapsodic eulogy to Chairman Mao, Chavez declared: "China, since its foundation 50 years ago by Mao Zedong, has been rising up. China has given an example to the world, to countries like ours, that we are emerging from an era failed in politics and economics. We are with China in what must be done to defend the sovereignty of peoples."

A few weeks later, Chavez was in Communist Cuba offering similar bouquets to his "dear brother" Fidel. On November 18, 1999, at the Great Hall of the University of Havana, Chavez announced: "Venezuela is going in the same direction, toward the same sea toward which the Cuban people are bound, the sea of happiness, of true social justice, of peace." In the years since, the militant Chavez has moved Venezuela--a major source of U.S. oil--ever closer to the Communist regimes in Beijing and Havana. Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who now runs Moscow, is also a favorite ally and business partner. During his trip to Moscow on November 25-26, Chavez criticized the U.S. for alleged interference in Ukraine's disputed election, pointedly ignoring the blatant interference in the election by Putin, his host. Chavez doesn't seem to have any problem identifying himself as a Marxist, so why do the major media?