Venezuela's propaganda machine was at its best yesterday for the one-year anniversary of former President Hugo Chavez's death. Or, as TV journalists with government-controlled Telesur described it, his "physical departure."
The military parade held to honor the dead leader was clearly meant to proclaim the survival of his ideas. The event was a supercharged version of the cult of personality that surrounded Chavez in life. His successor, President Nicolas Maduro, and the country's top military brass repeatedly referred to Chavez during the ceremony as their "supreme" and "eternal" commander.
