Ramtin Arablouei and Randa Abdel-Fattah

Hour one turns into two, then three, four, five.

Hour six, I think he came back to my question, and he did, then he did actually answer it with, by using a metaphor, he said that

The Revolution was an unfinished work of art, and he was the artist.

And he could not, in good conscience, hand the brush over to another artist that he needed to finish it.

After eight hours, the show finally comes to an end.

And backstage, Chavez goes up to Rory.

He was very friendly.

I mean, he came up and shook hands.

And his tone to me was like, hey, don't, you know, don't sweat the, you know, the fact that I turned you into an imperialist villain for a while.

You know, it's a show.

That was Chavez in a nutshell.

A showman, a visionary, and a salesman.

Someone who could put a bow on a broken down car and convince you to buy it.

By this time, 2007, Chavez had managed to consolidate power in almost every sector of society.

The military, the government, and oil.

The price per barrel of oil when Uwe Tja was elected in 1998 was $8.

At the height of his presidency, the price per barrel of oil was $150.

Chavez invested a lot of that oil money in social programs for the poor.

Parallel institutions that he could have more control over and kind of squeezing and starving the others that were more independent.

So Chavez was spending a ton of money, but not actually strengthening any of the existing infrastructure in Venezuela.