Chávez Calls Bush ‘the Devil’ in U.N. Speech

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela bitterly and sarcastically assailed President Bush before the United Nations General Assembly today, portraying Mr. Bush as “the devil” who thinks he is “the owner of the world.”

“Yesterday, the devil came here,” Mr. Chávez said, alluding to Mr. Bush’s appearance before the General Assembly on Tuesday. “Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.”

Chavez extends anti-Bush tirade on visit to Harlem

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez launched a new personal attack on President George W. Bush, using a visit to a church to call the US leader an "alcoholic" and a "sick man.

A day after Chavez used the UN bully pulpit to call Bush "the devil" a "tyrant" who acts like he owns the world — prompting broad condemnation in the United States — Chavez was equally vitriolic as he spoke at the Olivet Baptist church in the New York neighborhood of Harlem

"Bush is an alcoholic, a sick man with a lot of hang-ups," declared the left-wing Venezuelan leader. "He walks like John Wayne.

Bush "doesn’t know anything about politics, he got there because of Daddy," said Chavez, referring to Bush’s father, George Bush, US president from 1989 to 1993.

Claim: E-mails urge Americans to buy/not buy Citgo brand gasoline.

Status: Multiple.

Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends.

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Origins: Dueling Citgo e-mails reached our inbox in early 2006, one urging Americans to buy only Citgo brand gasoline in order to support "Venezuela’s democratic government" and avoid sending more U.S. dollars to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, and the other urging Americans to boycott Citgo over remarks by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

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Not surprisingly, U.S. attitudes towards President Chávez tend to be polarized along political lines, with one side declaring him a dangerous dictator who supports America’s enemies, while the other side defends him as a democratically-elected leader who is the target of the current administration’s enmity primarily because he dares to stand up to the U.S.

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Neither a "buycott" nor a boycott is likely to accomplish much beyond the symbolic. In the first case, the Citgo brand (marketed by Citgo Petroleum Corporation, which has been owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela, since 1990) doesn’t have nearly enough presence in the U.S. to satisfy demand; in the second case, boycotting a gasoline brand over political issues is problematic for a number of reasons (not least of which is the notion that threatening not to buy gasoline from someone who is threatening not to sell it to you doesn’t sound like an effective ploy for either side).

Although Citgo may be owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, it is a formerly American company which is still headquartered in the U.S. (in Houston, Texas), employs 4,000 people, and supplies 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline and other petroleum products — Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela who would be economically harmed by such an action. (Citgo also provides free or discounted heating oil to low-income communities and tribal reservations within the United States.) And, of course, in today’s oil market Citgo could likely find alternative buyers for its products far more easily than the U.S. could make up the shortfall created by a cut-off of  Venezuelan oil.

As we’ve noted in many other articles discussing various schemes regarding where and how people should purchase gasoline, the global and fungible nature of the world oil market doesn’t really provide consumers with many effective opportunities to influence political issues through their buying patterns.

7-11 dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier

7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier after more than 20 years as part of a previously announced plan by the convenience store operator to launch its own brand of fuel.

7-Eleven officials said Wednesday that the company’s decision was partly motivated by politics.

Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-run oil company and 7-Eleven is worried that anti-American comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might prompt motorists to fill-up elsewhere.

Chavez has called President George W. Bush the devil and an alcoholic. The U.S. government has warned that Chavez is a destabilizing force in Latin America.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans’ concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela’s president," said 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris.

"Certainly Chavez’s position and statements over the past year or so didn’t tempt us to stay with Citgo," she added.

Instead, 7-Eleven, which sells gasoline at 2,100 of its 5,300 U.S. stores, will now purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy Group of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City, and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp.

Chabris said 7-Eleven’s decision to sell its own brand was based on many factors, including Citgo’s decision this summer to stop supplying stations in parts of Texas and other states to focus on retailers closer to its refineries in Corpus Christi, Lake Charles, La., and Lemont, Ill.

But 7-Eleven had been considering creating its own brand of fuel since at least early last year, and some analysts suggested 7-Eleven may now be hyping the political angle a way to curry favor with U.S. consumers.

"This has nothing to do with Chavez," said Oil Price Information Service director Tom Kloza. "They (7-Eleven) just didn’t want to be tied to one supplier."

Kloza said all 7-Eleven did was seek out suppliers who could sell it the cheapest fuel and "that was not Citgo."

Citgo spokesman Fernando Garay declined to comment on whether Chavez’s comments had a bearing on 7-Eleven’s change in suppliers. He said the break was "a mutual agreement of the two companies."

Garay said 7-Eleven was a "significant" part of Citgo’s retail presence in Texas and Florida. "It was a valued relationship," he said.