UTTER VULGARITY - AT 7:28 P.M. ET:  Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez is being feted by the professional airheads at the Venice Film Festival.  And chief among the airheads is Oliver Stone, "American" director and friend of dictators everywhere:  This requires calming pills:

VENICE, Italy (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a movie star welcome Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where he walked the red carpet with director Oliver Stone for the premiere of the documentary "South of the Border."

Hundreds of admirers, some chanting "president, president," gathered outside of the Casino for the leader's arrival. A few held up Venezuelan flags and a banner in Spanish that read "Welcome, president."

Chavez threw a flower into the crowd and touched his heart, and at one point took a photographer's camera to snap a picture himself. Security outside the Casino was tightened in advance of his arrival with military police checking bags.

Chavez praised Stone's work for depicting what he said were improvements made across Latin America.

COMMENT:  Chavez just returned from Iran, where he embraced a government that recently murdered its citizens in cold blood in the streets of Tehran.  Apparently, that bothered neither Chavez nor Oliver Stone.  Chavez also pledged gasoline shipments to Iran if new sanctions on that country include cutting off its fuel supplies.  Hmm.  We wonder whether President Obama would have the guts to intercept Venezuelan ships, or whether he would seek to "engage" Chavez.

Chavez's appearance at Venice coincides with large demonstrations against him in Latin America, over the weekend.

Oliver Stone is the lowest form of Hollywood.  An American red, he regularly sides with enemies of the United States.  He made films like "JFK," which give a completely distorted view of history.  Incredibly, Showtime has just commissioned him to do an American history documentary series, which is like asking Osama bin Laden to do a documentary history of Christianity.  The commission indicates just how far left Hollywood has become.  It is no longer an American industry.  It's now just part of an "international" community of "artists."

Kids in school today are taught that the Congressional investigations into Communist influence in Hollywood in the late 40s and early 50s were frauds and jokes, part of the "McCarthy" era.  Well, there were certainly problems with those investigations, and they may have done more harm than good, but the basic premise - that the left is powerful in Hollywood - was true then, and it's more true now.

September 7, 2009