In Impromptus today, I tell a story, one hardly reported in the media. Let me retell it, just quickly — and make a point about it.
Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s successor as “presidential dictator” of Venezuela, was traveling to New York, where he was scheduled to address the U.N. He stopped over in Vancouver. He was traveling in a Cuban plane, with twelve Cuban agents — all of whom had been issued Venezuelan passports. He did not proceed into the U.S. He decided to return to Caracas.
Why? Well, here’s his explanation: Otto Reich and Roger Noriega were plotting to kill him. Our friends Otto and Roger are diplomats and foreign-policy analysts who have served in Republican administrations.
Okay, I now come to my point (the point of this blogpost, I mean — there are other points in my column): Say whatever else you will about this story, it’s interesting. Very interesting. Loaded with color. Plenty of intrigue. Why don’t our media jump on this story?
I’ll hazard two thoughts: First, our “monodailies,” as Mark Steyn says, are dull, dull, dull. Heaven forbid you interest the reader. But second, could it be that our media are loath to investigate the tight and malign relationship between Maduro and the Castros? Then again, they can always try to make the yanquis the villain.
I have read those entertaining, colorful, jazzy British newspapers, and I enjoy them very much. (Fabulous obits, for one thing.) But I also notice many errors in them, in subjects I know about. Accurate and uninteresting is probably better than interesting and inaccurate.
But interesting and accurate — there’s the ticket.
P.S. Just a memo to itchy-fingers (I’m speaking of a class of e-mailers): I recognize — boy, do I — that our dull outlets can be inaccurate, in addition to zzzzz . . .