Marathon Pundit: Chavez threatening to shut down TV station critical of him

Pictures such as the one on the right will haunt Barack Obama every time a story like this comes out:

President Hugo Chavez is threatening again to shut down Globovision, the sole television channel in Venezuela that regularly criticizes him — saying it had stirred panic for reporting an earthquake before the government announced it.

"We're not going to tolerate a crazy man with a cannon shooting it at the whole world," Chavez said on his weekly television and radio show Sunday, referring to Alberto Ravell, the Globovision general manager. "Enough! . . . This has to end or I'll stop calling myself Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias."

"You are playing with fire, manipulating, inciting hate and much more. All of you: television networks, radio stations, papers," he said. "Don't make a mistake with me."

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro followed up Monday by charging that Ravell had terrorized Venezuelan women and children with his 5:21 a.m. report.