Should Joe Kennedy’s Chavez ties disqualify him from a senate seat?

With speculation growing that the Kennedys might want to keep Teddy’s seat in the family, the New Republic‘s Jamie Kirchick advises voters to take a look at how Joe Kennedy’s Venezuela-aided discounted heating oil program in Massachusetts has strengthened Hugo Chavez’s regime:

By shuttling oil to the underprivileged, Chavez was deliberately mimicking his hero Fidel Castro, who has sent Cuban doctors throughout the world as a supposed sign of international good will. But Chavez made no bones about the real motivations underlying his “oil diplomacy”: “It is a card that we are going to play with toughness against the toughest country in the world, the United States,” he told an Argentinean newspaper. And he found willing accomplices in Joe Kennedy and his erstwhile colleague Bill Delahunt, the congressman from Quincy, Massachusetts, who helped orchestrate the deal. In 2005, Delahunt authored a “confidential memorandum” to Chavez, in which he advised the Venezuelan strongman that his offering discounted oil to low-income Americans “is an extraordinary opportunity to address urgent needs of people living in poverty, while showcasing the compassion of your nation.” […]

The great irony here is that John and Robert Kennedy were staunch anti-communists who believed in the robust assertion of American values abroad. As president, Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress, an aid program intended to serve as a bulwark against the communist infiltration of Latin America. According to Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, which monitors Latin America, “What Joe Kennedy has done both in Venezuela and in the United States to whitewash the crimes of Hugo Chavez goes against everything his family members valued.” And that, much more so than nepotism, should disqualify him from the Senate.

Kirchick makes a good point, and his piece includes plenty of examples of absurd statements Kennedy has made in defence of Chavez, any one of which would make a great attack ad. On the other hand, the U.S. imported 435 million barrels of oil from Venezuela last year. In terms of strengthening Chavez’s hold on power, Kennedy’s program is a drop in the bucket. 

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