Alexandra Beech has a fantastically insightful essay debunking a truly lousy piece by airheaded Washington Post columnist Marcela Sanchez, who claims Hugie Chavez is just a teddy bear in the region capable of stabilizing it. Well, yeah, the way graveyards tend to be stable places I guess.

But Alex shows the reality much better – take a look at the depth of this:

That Ms. Sanchez has been hood-winked into believing that Chavez has a Robin Hood side is not surprising. After all, she believes that ???????Latin America today is not in the midst of a Cold War where externally financed leftist rebel movements wage guerrilla warfare against democratic governments.??????? That is only true to a certain degree, if one thinks solely of the influence of the former Soviet Union on Latin America years ago. But Marxists have grown much more savvy over the years. They????????ve realized that a revolution gets much further in a business suit and ???????elections??????? than by impromptu attacks from the mountains. In this globalized era, financing the explosion of an oil pipeline doesn????????t accomplish what financing a social explosion in front a presidential palace does, then calling it an ???????increasingly frustrated population…taking to the streets and demanding that their elected leaders deliver the goods promised by U.S.-touted reforms.??????? That she would think that those ???????protests??????? are spontaneous either reflects extreme naivety or a hidden agenda to promote a particular political bend.

It just keeps getting better, a truly awesome read. Read the whole thing here.