Christopher Hitchens recounts in Slate.com the lurid details of Hugo Chávez's politicized obsession with the revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar that he saw first-hand during a 2008 trip to Venezuela with Sean Penn.

"..Chavez' necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement," he writes. "In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830."

Hitchens goes on to describe Chavez' disbelief that Americans landed on the moon, his efforts to violate the Monroe Doctrine, his uncertaintly as to the existence of al-Qaida and his dismissal of the terrorist acts perpetrated by Osama bin Landen.


Read the entire story at slate.com