In my opinion, Harry Belafonte, is a mouthpiece for the far left, however, he is not naive. I think the he was a very talented entertainer who misses the limelight and is just trying to garner publicity and notice. I don't think he cares what he says as long as people pay attention to him. He reminds me of Howard Dean and other has beens who will do or say anything (true or not) in order to keep their names and faces in the newspapers and on television.

Harry Belafonte is not stupid and it would take a very stupid American to believe that Hugo Chavez is not a 'petty tyrant', a fraudulently elected 'dictator' and a dangerous enemy of the United States and of Latin America.

For Mr. Belafonte to make statements to Chavez like, "We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution.", "No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people . . . support your revolution.", to accuse the U.S. news media of falsely painting Chavez as a "dictator," when in fact, he said, there is democracy and citizens are "optimistic about their future.", to call President George W. Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world", would tend to make you think that Mr. Belafonte is indeed naive and ignorant. However, by saying the foregoing he got a huge amount of free publicity, and in 'show business' there is a saying, "no publicity is bad publicity". Many people who had never heard of him or did not know that he was still around, are now thinking about him. I wouldn't be suprised if his record sales did not increase at least temporarily.

Belafonte has also stated that African-American officials in the Bush administration are "black tyrants", that Secretary of State Colin Powell was a "house slave" and he has compared the Bush the administration to "Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany".

Come to think of it, maybe Mr. Belafonte is not desperately seeking publicity, maybe he is just mentally deranged. Either way, somebody should put a muzzle on him in order to keep him from spewing so much hate and malice. Free speech is one thing, but hate speech is something else.

I find this whole Belafonte mess very disapointing. I would have liked to remember Harry Belafonte as the talented and brilliant entertainer that he was, not as the spiteful and hateful person that he has become.

This article was posted on January 14, 2006