There was really a ton of hub-bub following Hugo Chavez’s speech to the UN General Assembly last week where he called President George W. Bush the devil. The New York Times featured a picture of the event on its homepage and did an interview with Noam Chomsky to get his reaction to the reference Chavez made to his book. CITGO, the Venezuelan state-owned gas subsidiary, took a couple hits when 7/11 cited Chavez’ remarks as a reason it ended their 20 year supplier contract and a Boston city councilman demanded that the huge CITGO sign above Fenway Park be taken down. And even McSweeney’s, which I usually like, published this shitty Carlos Mencia-inspired parody, Hugo Chavez Has Anger Management Issues. (Which, strangely, doesn’t make fun of Chavez for his previous name for Bush – Mister Danger – which you’d think people would find sillier than anything they made up. I’ve got to believe that this was because they didn’t know about it, and not because they appreciated the literary reference too much to mock it.)

Chavez certainly benefits from the media attention heaped on him. It helps him domestically, where he faces an election in December and anti-Americanism plays pretty well with voters. Even though the election probably won’t be too competitive, it will put him into his last term before he has to amend the constitution again to stay in power. And the kind of demagoguery that can mobilize a 1.5 million member militia to prevent foreign invasions can help keep people’s minds off of poverty and oil price fluctuations. It also is probably generally beneficial for him in the international sphere, where he can influence public opinion in his bids to try to win a seat for Venezuela on the UN Security Council, and to maintain South America’s rejection of the FTAA.

I’m not entirely sure why the US media gives him all this attention, though. I guess it impresses on us the idea that anti-American sentiment in the world is felt only by lunatics. I really can’t think of a single foreigner whose criticisms of the US are given any popular credence. Maybe Fareed Zakaria. And of course the zany Frenchman, Bernard Henri-Levy. But in Henri-Levy’s case the exception proves the rule: the very novelty of that guy coming to give us a look at ourselves was the reason he was able to make the talk show circuit.

And that’s funny because it’s not like anyone thinks Americans’ self-criticisms are sufficient. I, personally, would even say that Chavez’ accusation that the US is a terrorist state for harboring Pat Robertson shows a much better understanding of terrorism than anything I’ve heard from a Democrat.