Hugo Chavez vs. Michael Moore

  It seems that even socialists are getting sick of Michael Moore. Moore recently went on Jimmy Kimmel Live and made a joke about getting drunk with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and helping him write his speeches to the United Nations. Well the Chavistas were having none of that. Take this paragraph from Eva Golinger, ...

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attends a Directors Lunch at the Quatro Fontani Hotel during the 66th Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2009 in Venice, Italy.

 

 

It seems that even socialists are getting sick of Michael Moore.

Moore recently went on Jimmy Kimmel Live and made a joke about getting drunk with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and helping him write his speeches to the United Nations. Well the Chavistas were having none of that.

Take this paragraph from Eva Golinger, one of Chavez’s most prominent defenders:

Moore is exceptionally full of himself towards the end of the interview with Jimmy Kimmel. He says Chávez asked him for advice about his upcoming United Nations speech. Moore sternly told the South American president to “say sorry for calling Bush the devil, “el diablo”” during his last UN intervention. And to say this time around it’s all about the “hope”! Way to defend Bush, Michael! Wait, didn’t you write, direct and film Fahrenheit 9/11? Right, but when someone “non-US” tells it like it is, you get way patriotic. I get it.

Other outrage followed suit. They lambasted Moore for saying that Chavez drinks, even worse that he drinks tequila. They also got unusually offended at the idea that Chavez would use speechwriters, or for that matter, Teleprompters. The exclamation-point-happy Golinger said, “We know that nobody writes his speeches, not even him! He speaks from his heart, and not from a teleprompter!”

Michael Moore has been called many things in his career, but a supporter of George W. Bush? This has to be a first.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Bobby Pierce is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy.

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