Joe & Hugo

Joseph Kennedy is taking a lot of heat for an ad here in the Boston area, touting "our friends from Venezuela" for helping with low cost heating oil for Kennedy's Citizens Energy program.

Some of the criticism is unfair, in my mind, because the program has had contracts with Citgo since 1978, long before Hugo Chavez was thought of as a possible leader of the country. One the other hand, some of Joe's responses to his detractors are, well, typical Kennedy bullshit.

Connie Mack (R-Fla) has been the biggest opponent of Joe's ads, calling them propaganda for Chavez, a man who has sworn himself as an enemy of the US. Joe took umbrage to that and mad a few statements of his own (from the AP):

Kennedy fired back by saying that if Mack wants to create a moral litmus test for oil-exporting countries and other trade partners, the congressman should hold Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and China to the same standard.

“Once we’ve followed the Mack Doctrine and refused oil from every country that fails to meet our disciplined moral standards, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your walks to Washington, because there certainly won’t be fuel to fly you there,” Kennedy wrote to Mack.

Unfortunately, for Joe, he's got a few problems with his thought line. While we, as a country, don't approve of some of the things that go on in the places he mentioned, the leaders of NONE of those countries has called our President "the Devil", or suggested they'd like to start a revolution here, or sworn that we should fall. Hugo, on the other hand, has. It's a fact Joe finds easy to ignore, but the rest of us shouldn't.

Speaking of Hugo, evidently he's having issues keeping folks at home. (According to the Wall Street Journal) The US Consulate in Caracas says that Visa applications are up over 40% in the last year, as Venezuelans try and get out of the country.

The oil company that Joe calls a friend is losing people left and right as it's nationalized. Hundreds have moved to Canada, Mexico and other oil producing states where they can still earn a buck, and not worried about being fired for not supporting "El Presidente".

The soon to be nationalized phone and power companies are having the same issue. Evidently workers who opposed Hugo in the last election have started to be purged. Those who don't support his new programs are trying to get out before they get the axe, too.

Technorati Tags: Joe Kennedy, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, Oil, Politics, Connie Mack