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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move When elements of the Venezuelan military forced president Hugo Chavez from office last week, the editorial boards of several major U.S. newspapers followed the U.S. government's lead and greeted the news with enthusiasm. In an April 13 editorial, the New York Times triumphantly declared that Chavez's "resignation" meant that "Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator." Conspicuously avoiding the word "coup," the Times explained that Chavez "stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader." Calling Chavez "a ruinous demagogue," the Times offered numerous criticisms of his policies and urged speedy new elections, saying "Venezuela urgently needs a leader with a strong democratic mandate." A casual reader might easily have missed the Times' brief acknowledgement that Chavez did actually have a democratic mandate, having been "elected president in 1998." The paper's one nod to the fact that military takeovers are not generally regarded as democratic was to note hopefully that with "continued civic participation," perhaps "further military involvement" in Venezuelan politics could be kept "to a minimum." Three days later, Chavez had returned to power and the Times ran a second editorial (4/16/02) half-apologizing for having gotten carried away: "In his three years in office, Mr. Chavez has been such a divisive and demagogic leader that his forced departure last week drew applause at home and in Washington. That reaction, which we shared, overlooked the undemocratic manner in which he was removed. Forcibly unseating a democratically elected leader, no matter how badly he has performed, is never something to cheer." To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1867 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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