OPPENHEIMER denies wingnuttiness. CHAVEZ begs to differ.

[UTUSN]

Recently, somebody challenged my noting that Classics professor Victor Davis HANSON was CHEENEE's guru in drum-beating for the Iraq Attack on the grounds that such wingnuttiness did not obliterate the validity of his scholarship on the subject of warfare in antiquity. I agreed and never said it did in the first place--"compartmentalizing."

Whenever ANY source critical of Hugo is cited, his supporters instantly dismiss it as being wingnut: OPPENHEIMER, the Associated Press, the NYT, anybody and everybody, regardless of having been located through Google.

I have only read about 3 or 4 columns by OPPENHEIMER in my life, am guided by what appears in my local paper and its headline writer. In the various flame wars over Hugo, all of the points raised by OPPENHEIMER here have been justified and rationalized by Hugo's supporters, but I think the column is worth a glance for his denial of being a wingnut and for somebody else's (besides mine) opinion of Hugo's authoritarianism.


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THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT

Some questions for Chávez from "deep-thinking analyst"

BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
[e-mail]
http://www.miamiherald.com/421/story/44691.html

.... Chávez read on the air much of my March 11 column entitled "Release of rights reports undermines Bush's trip," saying he wanted to comment on an article by a "right-winger who writes a lot against us, Oppenheimer, Andrés Oppenheimer." (Funny, because I left my native Argentina fleeing from a right-wing dictatorship, have spent much of my time in recent years beating up on Bush and get criticized by a majority of my U.S. readers for allegedly being a lefty.) ....

SOME QUESTIONS

So with all due respect, I would like to pose the following questions: If you are so democratic, why do you glorify military coups? If you are so progressive, why do you close down independent television stations? If your hero Fidel Castro is so popular in Cuba, why doesn't he allow a free election? If you respect human rights, why don't you allow OAS human rights inspectors into your country?

And, finally, if you are so convinced of what you say, why do you only grant interviews to nonchallenging reporters? Last time we met and I respectfully asked you for an interview, you told me to go to hell.

I challenge you to answer all these questions personally. We would get a great audience -- fit for a "narcissist-Leninist" and an aspiring "deep-thinking analyst."

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[EFerrari]

1. And Hugo, when did you beating your wife? n/t