I assumed that death of the Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan strongman, would prompt an alternately inane and offensive response from the hard-left Nation magazine. They did not disappoint.  Check out, “R.I.P., Hugo Chavez (1954-2013)” by contributing editor Robert Dreyfuss:

For now—por ahora—Venezuelans are waiting to see what happens next.

But now is the time for thinking about Hugo Chávez’s legacy. It’s a controversial one, because Chávez made mistakes and missteps along the way. But there’s no disputing the fact that the late Venezuelan leader did a lot to make life better for many, many Venezuelans. It’s rare, very rare, to find a leader of a developing country who cares passionately and deeply about the underprivileged, the poor, the downtrodden and the underserved, while simultaneously taking on the often selfish and self-interested elite, the wealthy and the privileged, who in turn make common cause with US and Western elites and the vaunted “private sector” abroad. And those Western elites find it easy to mobilize the institutions of the states in which they live, including military and intelligence agencies, to do their bidding.

“No disputing?” I think Mr. Dreyfuss needs to get out of the house more often.