Hugo Chavez

Chubby and blustery, the left-wing strongman of Venezuela might have stepped from an old Woody Allen movie, were it not for his vast oil reserves. But global demand for black gold gave the Castro protégé a bully pulpit. The Bush administration could do little but seethe. It was up to his people to narrowly defeat his bid for lifetime power, while the King of Spain told him simply to "shut up."