This week's Mainstream Media Scream features the Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson's effusive praise for Hugo Chavez minutes after his death was announced.
On MSNBC's Hardball, Robinson recalled meeting Chavez. "He's very quick-witted. It was a visit he made to Washington shortly after he became president, and I remember he came to the Washington Post and there were several of us waiting to greet him. I didn't know if he spoke English at the time, so I introduced myself to him in Spanish, when he got to me in the line, and he shook my hand and looked up at me and kind of grinned and said, 'hello, my name is Hugh.' And it just kind of cracked everybody up. He was very loose and very quick in that way."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: "The press corps have a strange affinity for tyrants - so long as they are on the left and all the better if, like Chavez, they ridicule President George W. Bush whom journalists also despised."
Rating: Two out of five screams.
