I recently traveled to Venezuela where I stayed with some friends who are completely opposed to the government of Hugo Chavez.

Before I departed, they told me how crime-ridden their country is these days. I was advised to not speak to people on the flight to Caracas and that upon arrival, I was to pray to God that someone I knew would meet me at the airport.

I wasn’t robbed – and I really never felt unsafe while in Venezuela. I found it to be something of a typical Latin American country where people seemed to go about their daily lives without much trouble, despite the wide gulf between the poor and the rich.

That being said, I did see Hugo Chavez’ face most everywhere I went. But I wrote that off as creepy, but tolerable.

Shortly after I returned to the US, I learned that Chavez has exhumed the bones of Simon Bolivar and had taken one the hands of Bolivar to use for his own purposes. Who knows why? Santeria? Ancestor worship? Patriotism? I don’t know.

So given that background, I was pleased to read this article by Christopher Hitchens in Slate:

Chávez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap. Even his macabre foraging in the coffin of Simón Bolívar was initially prompted by his theory that an autopsy would prove that The Liberator had been poisoned—most probably by dastardly Colombians. This would perhaps provide a posthumous license for Venezuela’s continuing hospitality to the narco-criminal gang FARC, a cross-border activity that does little to foster regional brotherhood.

I hope that Venezuela can continue to exist as something of a prosperous nation guided by the rule of law, but given Chavez’ crazy, I’m not sure if that’s possible.