In fact, for the malcontents of Hollywood, academia, and the catwalks, Chávez is an ideal ally. Just as the sympathetic foreigners whom Lenin called "useful idiots" once supported Russia abroad, their modern equivalents provide the Venezuelan president with legitimacy, attention, and good photographs. He, in turn, helps them overcome the frustration John Reed once felt—the frustration of living in an annoyingly unrevolutionary country where people have to change things by law. For all his brilliance, Reed could not bring socialism to America. For all his wealth, fame, media access, and Hollywood power, Sean Penn cannot oust George W. Bush. But by showing up in the company of Chávez, he can at least get a lot more attention for his opinions.
As for Venezuelan politics, or the Venezuelan people, they don't matter at all. The country is simply playing a role filled in the past by Russia, Cuba, and Nicaragua—a role to which it is, at the moment, uniquely suited. Clearly, Venezuela is easier to idealize than Iran and North Korea, the former's attitude to women being not conducive to fashion models, the latter being downright hostile to Hollywood. Venezuela is also warm, relatively close, and a country of beautiful waterfalls.
Oh, dear. Well, let's have a look at Chàvez' depredations to humanity and civil liberties. There is one allegation from 2004 of 9 protesters being killed, and two dozen more detained and beaten, which should not be minimized or ignored. But the rest? Packing the court system with reliable cronies and rubber stamps; attempting to suspend due process; various methods of harassing unfavorable media entities. Sound familiar?
Look, Chàvez is a preening buffoon, no doubt about it. Penn and Glover obviously share anti-Bush (as opposed to, you know, anti-American, which is really what Applebaum's imputing here) sentiments, along with roughly 90% of the world and two-thirds of the American public on an average day. A useless slice of ass like Naomi Campbell undoubtedly has common cause with anyone who thinks other people are simply to be used to further one's own interests and whims. Not a huge deal; indeed, hardly worth mentioning at all.
Of course Chàvez, nursing a permanent grudge from this administration's aborted attempt, is always going to take advantage of any and every opportunity to tweak El Pendejo's nose. The degree to which that feeds into this or that celebrity's urge to appear profound is obviously open to speculation, but why even bother?
Is this really any more obnoxious or offensive than, say, Chuck Norris writing a regular column of retrograde political chunder? How about Fred Thompson moseying for president (or at least raising money by acting like he's running)? Celebrities use and misuse their status all the time, often for much worse causes than playing grab-ass with a clownish South American autocrat. I haven't heard of Chàvez torturing (or even "debating" false denials), nor has he destroyed a country and ruined millions of lives to show his dad how tough he really is. People who worry about Chàvez seem to have completely forgotten what sort of monsters roamed that continent not so very long ago.
Hell, with the ever-progressing confluence of journalism and celebritainment, you could even make an argument that journalists themselves, especially teevee journamalists, have been at least as irresponsible about whom they are seen with or tacitly endorse. Penn and Glover at least make no pretense to objectivity as far as partisanship, whereas staid sensible types such as Dean Broder literally stenograph the RNCC's sales pitch and pronounce it "moderate".
Compared to that sort of thing, archaic epithets such as "useful idiot" and "fellow traveler" have essentially lost whatever sting they may have genuinely possessed, seeing as how all manner of unimaginable cruelty, around the world and for decades, has been given a pass simply by waving a flag and telling people what they want to hear.
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