Ballenger's visit with Chavez

President Obama's handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders left many Republicans steaming.

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada called it "irresponsible for the President to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chávez," Jim Morrill reports.

But eight years ago this week, it was a Republican laughing and joking with Chávez — in of all places, Hickory.

It was the only U.S. stop Chavez made on his way back from a Summit of the Americas in Quebec. He spent two days with then-GOP Rep. Cass Ballenger, who hosted a barbecue dinner for the leftist leader at his home.

The two also toured several businesses, including Ballanger's, and visited a day care center.

Ballenger, chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of International Relations, had met Chávez on a trip to Venezuela and said the two "hit it off."

Chávez took home a pair of baseball socks made for him at Catawba County Community College and a favorable impression of at least one corner of America.

"We've seen Cass' business, we spoke with his workers," Chávez said at the time. "This should be the idea of capitalism."

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Re: Ballenger's visit with Chavez

Submitted by cmitchz on April 21, 2009 - 4:25pm.

Was it as well known in April 2001 that Chavez is an America-hating fringe lefty?

Certainly he was known for his socialism, or should have been to a US Rep, although Chavez has advanced state control over his people since then. But he wasn't yet the clown face of third world anti-Americanism that he is today, for whatever that may be worth.

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Re: Ballenger's visit with Chavez

Submitted by maxlynda on April 21, 2009 - 3:04pm.

I rise to defend former Congressman Cass Ballenger for having committed hospitality.

Playing host to Mr. Chavez is certainly not the sort of conduct one would normally expect of a God-fearing, card-carrying Republican conservative, which Mr. Ballenger most assuredly is and has been for lo these four-plus decades.

At the same time, it may be as difficult for those unfamiliar with his record of service to imagine that the self-same Mr. Ballenger was once a God-fearing, card-carrying Democratic moderate with his moon in the manufacture of plastic bags and his family foundation dedicated to the care of the deserving, grateful poor.

Be that as it may, Mr. Ballenger is what he is, and always has been. If Republicans can forgive him for having once embraced the principles of the Democratic Party, surely they can be as generous in appreciating his welcoming attitude toward a guest in his home, even one as smarmingly ignoble as Mr. Chavez, the jerk.

I should add that I have also enjoyed many an evening of conviviality at the Ballenger home, whatever you may think of it.

Max Veale

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