Chavez: Obama's 'Smell of Hope' Beats Bush's Sulfur

Filmmaker issues rebuttal, and critic issues his own

(NEWSER) - Oliver Stone and a New York Times movie critic are feuding over a scathing review of Stone's documentary on Hugo Chavez, South of the Border. It began when the Times' Larry Rohter wrote this piece , in which he accuses Stone of "mistakes, misstatements, and missing details." Stone fired back with this detailed rebuttal , telling Rohter to get his own facts straight. And now, of course, Rohter has responded with a rebuttal of his own, reprinted at the Huffington Post . More»

Venezuelan talks of favorite American things, rips 'assassin' Bush

(NEWSER) - Hugo Chavez is fond of Americans and their culture even if their last president did try to have him killed, he told Larry King yesterday. The usually pugnacious Venezuelan president said he used to dream of playing baseball in Yankee Stadium and is a big fan of Walt Whitman and actor Charles Bronson. He finds his New York security detail "very gracious, very efficient, very kind." His affection does not extend to former President Bush, however, who he said ordered his assassination during a short-lived 2002 coup. More»

(NEWSER) - The "usual suspects" in the neoconservative camp are apoplectic at President Obama's behavior at the UN, writes Andrew Sullivan. After all, he had the nerve to "engage foreign powers as equals rather than as subordinates." Obama's critics, of course, see America as always in the right—even after the Bush-Cheney years and the corresponding plunge in international stature. "Obama's promise was and is a rebranding of America," says Sullivan. More»

Ex-UN rep not impressed by president's focus on 'interests that unite us'

(NEWSER) - President Obama's address to the United Nations yesterday was long on uniting nations and short on looking out for American interests, complains Bush administration UN representative John Bolton. The "Wilsonian" address was "a post-American speech by our first post-American president," and was "very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy," he notes. More»

(AP) - Honduras' ousted president, bolstered by international support, said he will return home to regain control and urged soldiers to stop cracking down on thousands of supporters who have protested his overthrow. Flanked by Latin American leaders who have vowed to help him regain power, Manuel Zelaya said yesterday he would accept an offer by the OAS secretary-general to accompany him back to Honduras. More»