Hugo Chavez's Golf Politics

Turns out the only thing more bizarre than Hugo Chavez's comments about golf (best exhibited in an impassioned tirade on his weekly TV show last month) is the American government's response to it. Shortly after the New York Times reported that the Venezuelan president had decried the sport as "bourgeois" and indicated he would move to replace many Venezuelan golf courses with public housing, a State Department spokesman felt compelled to swing back. The result was a pretty much inexcusable potpourri of puns.

"The suggestion that golf, a truly global sport, is bourgeois is a mulligan," P.J. Crowley, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs told AP today. "And once again Mr. Chavez, one of the hemisphere's most divisive figures, finds himself out of bounds."

Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Seriously, P.J. Crowley?

It's unclear what this finger-wagging, cotton-candy diplomacy will accomplish. But at least Chavez has stated his case clearly.

"It isn't justified that in the middle of a city there's a golf course, with so much land lacking for buildings for the people," Chavez said.