Hugo Chavez is dead and good riddance

The tyrant of Venezuela has croaked:

CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday after a two-year battle with cancer, ending 14 years of tumultuous rule that made the socialist leader a hero for the poor but a hate figure to his opponents.

Oh please. He was the reason why the poor remained that way. Because of people like him, poverty rose and businesses declined.

Now that he's gone, it remains to be seen if Venezuela will find its way back to being a more civilized, democratic country. But without the right foreign demands for this, there's no telling if it'll happen.