So this is what the left has come to eh?

…the vast crowds gathered
in Porto Alegre for the World Social Forum heard Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez, dressed in a red Che Guevara T-shirt, denouncing George
Bush, Tony Blair and neo-liberal economics.

And
instead of the polite applause accorded to Stark from a near-empty
hall, Chavez got the kind of reception that even Bono might be
embarrassed to receive. Porto Alegre confirmed that Chavez is now the
indisputable leader of the global poor, a Simon Bolivar of his age,
engaged in a mammoth populist experiment to redistribute wealth and
land.

Let’s run through this. Ex-Army officer. Check. Coup leader. Check. Populist. Check. Economy based on oil (alternatively, sucking the life-blood from Gaia to benefit American SUV drivers). Check. CIA doesn’t like him. Check. Glorifies Communist murderer. Check.  Supports Castro, Communist dictator. Check.

Drop varied ones and twos from that list and you could be describing Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghaddahfi or Leonid Brezhnev.

This is the left’s new global superstar?