Handshake With Obama Belies Chavez's Contempt for America

When President Obama met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Trinidad on Friday, he shook hands with a man who only four years ago called the United States the most "murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world."Chavez has hardly mellowed, either. Last month, in a radio address, he called Obama a "poor ignorant person," and in January he accused the new president of having the "same stench" as President Bush -- just the latest lashes in a long line of his signature anti-American speeches over the years.Here are just some of Chavez's anti-American blasts:-- "The U.S. has bombarded entire cities, used chemical weapons and napalm, killed women, children and thousands of soldiers. That's terrorism." (Sept. 25, 2005: Washington Post interview)-- The U.S. government under Bush is the "most savage, cruel and murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world." (Aug. 8, 2005: Caracas youth rally)-- "Our real enemy is called the U.S. empire, and on Sunday, Dec. 2, we're going to give another knockout to Bush, so no one forgets that is the battlefield." (Dec. 1, 2007: election speech in Caracas)-- "Capitalism will lead to the destruction of humanity ... (and America) is the devil that represents capitalism." (August 2006: speech in Vietnam)-- American policy in the Mideast is "a policy of permanent aggression, of war, of terrorism by the U.S. empire. That's the great guilty one, the great Satan, as they call it here." (April 1, 2009: Tehran, Iran)