As mentioned below, today’s New York Times Magazine story on Chavez is an interesting, if not totally accurate, read. The headline, though? Bleh. It asks “A New Castro?” To which the obvious answer is: Haven’t I read this article a hundred times already?
You’d be forgiven for being confused, since last week Newsweek ran an article titled, “Chavez, the New Castro.” And over the fall, syndicated columnist Maria Elena Salinas published her groundbreaking piece “Hugo Chavez, a New Castro?” which came on the heels of August’s double whammy, when the Washington Post ran an Op-Ed called “Chavez, the Next Castro?” even as NPR hit the airwaves with, “Will Chavez be the Next Castro?”
And these are just the latecomers. Way back in 2005, George Gedda wrote an in-depth piece in the Foreign Service Journal called “Hugo Chavez: A New Castro?" while a column about Chavez in the Washington Times called itself, “A New Castro With Big Money” Points for originality, Washington Times!
