newsflash: hugo chávez is an annoying jerk

[rone]

The King of Spain asked Hugo Chávez, "¿Por qué no te callas?"  Apparently, Chávez was all butthurt because he claims the Spanish ambassador showed up at the Venezuelan presidential palace during the failed coup in 2002, thus signifying support from the King and from then-Prime Minister José María Aznar (from what i can gather, the temporary president, Carmona, did meet with the Spanish and US ambassadors, but it's not clear where it happened).  Relations between Spain and Venezuela have degenerated since then.  While today's event was amusing in that the King got pissed off and told Chávez off, he displayed a lack of professionalism on par with Chávez's, and he seems to lack Chávez's gift of gab (this summary takes the King to task for using the informal "you" to address a head of state, but fails to take Chávez to task for later addressing the King as "Mister King").

This could have all been avoided if the King had hired a Usenet veteran to teach him how not to feed the trolls.

Comments

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

"¿Por qué no te callas?"

Are you sure he wasn't saying, "Why don't you call me?"

[nilasae.livejournal.com]

On a different note - (belated) happy birthday!

[reddragdiva]

I'm waiting for Chavez to build a fifty-foot gold statue of himself that turns to face the sun, and to name the days of the week and the months of the year after himself and his mother.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Juan Carlos has been a bit of a loose cannon lately, hasn't he? The thing he did right before this was to cause some kind of diplomatic crisis with Morocco by visiting Ceuta and Melilla.

I suspect he was peeved by Chavez throwing around the word "fascist" with abandon, since he was so personally involved in tossing out Spain's actually fascist government in his younger days (albeit by the strange method of playing nice with Franco and being named his successor, which I suppose is the sort of option available to kings).

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

It was about time somebody told that cavenewt Chavez to STFU.

[kawgirl.livejournal.com]

Didn't this happen days and days ago? I seem to recall listening to NPR last week on the way to work and hearing this... I kind of wish the King of Spain had told Hugo to shut the f* up. I'd put that on my phone.

Oh, and hey. I'm not a huge fan of the Spanish Royal Family. The crown prince once almost ran me over in Copenhagen.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you I was the King of Spain;
Now the Leafs call me up to drive the Zamboni! (http://www.fruvous.com/barglyr.html#spain)