Terence Corcoran: Chavez’s Canadian fan club is awfully quiet about Venezuela’s utter meltdown

It’s time for a break from the great media/Hollywood fixation on the imminent malfeasance of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Better, for sanity and perspective, to reflect on a former media/Hollywood fixation: The ideologically sainted Hugo Chavez, a national leader whose wondrous achievements as socialist president of Venezuela were hailed and celebrated for almost two decades.

With Venezuela currently slipping deeper into financial and economic ruin, not much has been heard from the dead dictator’s legion of supporters, including those Canadian media celebrities who joined hands with Hollywood types such as Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and Sean Penn to support Chavez as a great South American democrat.

One such Canadian, Naomi Klein, retweeted approvingly on the 2013 death of Chavez: “Yes, the Venezuelan president could be a strongman. But he leaves behind what might be called the most democratic country in the Western Hemisphere.”

The Western Hemisphere?! More democratic than, say, Canada? I suppose Venezuela might be called that, but not with a straight face. What Chavez actually left behind is one of the most horrifically destitute countries in the world. In December, Transparency International listed Venezuela as the only country in the Americas among the world’s 10 most corrupt governments...