Henrique Capriles’ father smelled of elderberries!!

Earlier this week moderate Henrique Capriles Radonski won a primary election to challenge Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez for the presidency in October.  The New York Times notes that Capriles is the most popular opposition candidate in quite some time.   This popularity seems to have caused both Chávez  and the Venezuelan state media to turn things ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Earlier this week moderate Henrique Capriles Radonski won a primary election to challenge Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez for the presidency in October.  The New York Times notes that Capriles is the most popular opposition candidate in quite some time.  

Earlier this week moderate Henrique Capriles Radonski won a primary election to challenge Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez for the presidency in October.  The New York Times notes that Capriles is the most popular opposition candidate in quite some time.  

This popularity seems to have caused both Chávez  and the Venezuelan state media to turn things up a notch.  The Guardian‘s Rory Carroll explains:

President Hugo Chávez on Thursday called the opposition’s presidential candidate a "low-life pig", signalling a caustic start to Venezuela’s election campaign.

The socialist leader vowed to crush Henrique Capriles in October’s vote, branding him an agent of imperialism and oligarchy hiding behind a mask of moderation.

"Now we have the loser, welcome! We’re going to pulverise you," he told an audience of medical students. "You have a pig’s tail, a pig’s ears, you snort like a pig, you’re a low-life pig. You’re a pig, don’t try and hide it." He avoided calling Capriles by name, referring instead to "el majunche", slang for "the crappy one".

The speech, which all radio and television stations were obliged to broadcast live, followed Capriles’s victory last Sunday in opposition primaries. The state governor won almost two-thirds of 3m votes cast, a higher than expected turnout which jolted the government.

Since then state media have launched multiple accusations at the wealthy 39-year-old challenger, calling him, among other things, a mendacious gay Nazi Zionist (emphasis added).

Your humble blogger cannot confirm that last claim — it’s possible that the Guardian just mashed together a long litany of insults against Chávez.  Still the hard-working staff here at FP  needs to pause for a moment and gasp in awe at the bolded insult above.  I mean, compared to "mendacious gay Nazi Zionist," calling Captiles a pig seems pretty tame.  That combination of adjectives is just so… so… contradictory that, on some da-da level of absurdism, one has to admire it.   The next thing you know, Chávez and his media cronies will accuse Capriles of being a "warthog-faced buffoon" or a "scumbag f***face d**khead" or having a father who smelled of elderberries or one of a hundred other insults.  

One would hope that Capriles and the opposition would match Chávez’s level of insults, but, alas, it appears that he is taking the "high road" and decided to talk about "issues" and stuff.  So, for quality invective like this, we’re going to have watch the Venezuelan state media more closely. 

I’m worried, however, that the Chávezistas might have peaked too soon with "mendacious gay Nazi Zionist."  In the interest of adding yet more priceless insults to the toolkit of over-the-top political rherotic, I therefore call upon all of my readers to help out the Venezuelan leader.  In the comments, try to suggest insults that, somehow, can top what Chávez and his allies have delivered to date. 

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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