In today’s L.A. Times director Oliver Stone discusses his upcoming documentary “South of the Border,” about the “warmhearted” Hugo Chavez. [emphasis added]:

Oliver Stone is shown warmly embracing Hugo Chávez, nibbling coca leaves with Evo Morales and gently teasing Cristina Elizabeth Fernández de Kirchner about how many pairs of shoes she owns. …

“I think he’s an extremely dynamic and charismatic figure. He’s open and warmhearted and big, and a fascinating character,” … ”But when I go back to the States I keep hearing these horror stories about ‘dictator,’ ‘bad guy,’ ‘menace to American society.’ I think the project started as something about the American media demonizing Latin leaders.

Guys like Stone are forced to rationalize that the American media is right-leaning in order to avoid their head exploding due to an acute case of FacingTheTruth-itosis. But maybe the doc will be more critical than we’re led to believe in this article. During their warm embrace, it’s possible Stone whispered hard-hitting questions in Hugo’s ear about reports such as this from the not-so-conservative Human Rights Watch.

The film’s writer Tariq Ali describes his doc as a “political road movie.”

A Blame America Tour is more like it:

A big part of the explanation the film advances is that the free-market economic policies pushed by the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund over the last several years largely have failed to alleviate Latin America’s chronic income inequality.

And then there’s that awesome Bolivarian Revolution Stone’s “rooting for.” No word yet on whether or not he’s willing to live under it:

“I’m rooting for [Hugo Chavez's] Bolivarian movement,” he says. “I’m rooting for their independence because I think that America has a new role to play in this world, and that’s not of an oppressor, but that of a cooperative and, let’s call it equal, partner.”

Time for today’s edition of Choose The Bigger Whopper: Is it the Times’ claim that few Hollywood directors deal with political topics or Stone using the word “truth” in the same sentence as “JFK?”

In an era when few Hollywood directors bother to deal with historical or political topics at all, Stone frequently has been targeted for playing loose with historical facts[.] … On this score, he vigorously defends his record.

“You do your homework, you do your research, we always did, whatever you think of my work,” he says. “Even going back to ‘JFK,’ I’ve always done as much research as we could. And there’s mistakes made, but there’s a lot of, you know, as much as we can put into these movies.” truth

Elite Hollywood Leftists embrace Socialist thugs like Chavez for just that reason: they’re elites, who see themselves not as someone living under the oppressive regimes they boost, but as being the toast of those oppressive regimes. No more of that awful capitalist money-raising to fund the next feature, but better yet, all the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O’Reillys and Glenn Becks who dare hold them accountable are put out of business. Silenced.

Stone’s attraction to this kind of world makes sense in other ways, as well. If it wasn’t for all this pesky democracy stuff everyone would believe everything in his films and a large part of his legacy (other than a half-dozen brilliant films, including “JFK”) wouldn’t be as a punchline for conspiracy theory jokes.

UPDATE: In the comments Christian Toto sums it up perfectly: “It’s staggering that artists continue to support people who oppose free expression.”

Originally published September 1 at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog.