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provide discounted home
heating oil to needy Americans. He also continued his tirade against
Bush, calling him an "alcoholic" and "a sick man" who acted like he was
John Wayne. He imitated what he called Bush's cowboy swagger, puffing
out his chest and swinging his arms. The crowd broke up in laughter.
    While he won over the throng in Harlem, Chávez's statements set
off an uproar elsewhere in the United States. The incendiary comments
and personal attacks, one of his Achilles' heels and a habit even some
of his supporters opposed, opened him to criticism from detractors that
he was little more than a buffoon, a crazy banana republic dictator who
didn't know the bounds of decency.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
called the statements "not becoming for a head of state." RepresentativeJohn Boehner of Ohio, the Republican House majority leader, blasted
Chávez as a "power-hungry autocrat."Senator John McCain of Arizona
dismissed him as a "two-bit dictator." In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times mocked him as a "clown president" and "the clown prince of
Caracas." The Wall Street Journal published an editorial calling him a
"dictator" — three times. TheNew York Daily News published Chávez's
photograph on the entire front page with a headline referring to an editorial
inside: " News ' Message to Crackpot Venezuelan Leader."
    Even liberal Democrats and Bush critics attacked him. "Hugo
Chávez fancies himself a modern day Simón Bolívar but he is an
everyday thug," House minority leaderNancy Pelosi said. Former president
Bill Clinton weighed in. "Hugo Chávez said something that was
wrong yesterday — unbecoming a head of state." In a sign of how badly
Chávez's performance went over in many sectors, even RepresentativeCharles Rangel, a Democrat from Chávez's supposed US power base
of Harlem, thundered: "We resent the fact that he would come to the
United States and criticize President Bush . . . You don't come into my
country, you don't come into my congressional district, and you don't
condemn my president."
    The governor of Maine announced his state would no longer accept
Chávez's discounted oil. A businessman in Alabama launched a boycott
of Venezuela-owned Citgo gasoline stations. In Boston a city council
member called for tearing down the large neon Citgo sign visible over
the left-field fence in Fenway Park that had for decades served as a city
landmark. The7-Eleven chain, inundated with angry callers, formally
announced and hyped its separation from Citgo as the gasoline supplier
at twenty-one hundred of its convenience stores, even though the decision
had been made months earlier. The company blasted Chávez for
his "derogatory" remarks about Bush.
    The Venezuelan president, in short, took a heavy political hit in
the United States for his attack on Bush, counteracting much of the
goodwill and positive publicity he'd generated with the Citgo-run discounted
home heating oil program he'd started a year earlier. But in a
larger context his comments were not so crazy or ill conceived. In theUnited Nations, where more than half the member states are developing
countries, they provoked laughter and cheers. When he ended
his twenty-three-minute address, he received the largest ovation of any
speaker. The wild applause went on so long — about four minutes —
that UN officials had to cut it off.
    During his speech Chávez waved a copy of leftist intellectualNoam Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance , a diatribe against US empire building. He urged
people to read it. Sales soared overnight, putting it atop Amazon.com's
best-sellers chart.
    The performanceat the United Nations was quintessential Chávez:
controversial, provocative, impulsive, devoid of diplomatic niceties,
winning enemies and admirers alike, playing to his base and sending
the rest to hell. He said what he believed and didn't care what others
thought. Despite the outrage among American leaders, some