Chávez and the King

I know that in the eyes of the Patriotically Correct crowd all Americans are supposed to despise Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as Castro, Jr., or whatever.

But I enjoyed this exchange just for the pure entertainment value of it. The Iberoamerican Summit was held last week in Santiago de Chile. On the final day, Friday, Chávez was harshing on former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar, the one who supporter Bush's Iraq invasion. Several times he referred to him as a "fascist", a false and unfair charge but not totally off the wall, since Aznar's People's Party (PP) is the direct organizational successor to former dictator Francisco Franco's party. More to the point, Aznar's government and the Spanish portion of the Catholic order Opus Dei actively promoted the unsuccessful 2002 coup attempt against Chávez.

Both the current Spanish Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and King Juan Carlos were in attendance at the same session. Zapatero, who successfully outsted Aznar's government in the elections of 2004, interrupted Chávez to object to his characterization of Aznar. Chávez kept talking and finally King Juan Carlos jumps in and says, "¿Por qué no te callas?" (Why don't you shut up?)

The English doesn't quite catch the King's use of the familiar "tú" form, where in diplomacy the formal "usted" form is essentially mandatory. So it was more like, "Why don't you shut up, punk?"

I'm sure Chávez' feelings weren't much hurt. And goading the Spanish King into losing his cool toward him surely won't hurt Chávez' image in the eyes of anyone who might be favorably inclined toward him.

You would think the PP would be grateful to both Zapatero and the King for defending their former prime minister. But you would be wrong. In a statement, the party said the whole thing was Zapatero's fault! Fascist, maybe not; but they've sure got some pricks in that party.

Source: El Rey se enfrenta a gritos a Chávez en defensa de Aznar: '¿Por qué no te callas?' El Mundo 10.11.2007 with a video of the exchange; El Rey a Chávez: "¿Por qué no te callas?" El País 10.11.2007 also with video.

Tags: aznar, españa, hugo chávez, juan carlos, spain, zapatero