Is Chavez Crazy Like a Fox?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Venezuelan mission in New York, September 21, 2006.

STEVE PYKE FOR TIME

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Chávez considers his bravado his chief asset, but critics say it too often makes it hard to take him seriously as a statesman. While Ahmadinejad wowed U.S. audiences with his verbal dexterity last week, Chávez seemed only to enhance his reputation for gratuitous Bush baiting. After Chávez's speech at the General Assembly, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, called the performance "a comic-strip approach to international affairs." A product of Venezuela's llanos, or rural plains, Chávez patterns his style after the straight-talking llaneros (cowboys) he grew up with. (One of his favorite American films is Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider.) Chávez is fond of calling Bush "Mister Danger," a reference to a quintessential Ugly American in Venezuela's best-known novel, Doña Bárbara, a torrid story set not far from where Chávez was raised. And the "devil" barb, he points out, stems from a legend about a llanero who beats Satan in a singing contest. But at some point even cowboys have to learn a more diplomatic tune.