The Redhunter

The arrangement is this: Mr. Chávez's Citgo--a Houston-based oil company owned by the Venezuelan government--is supplying home heating oil to Mr. Kennedy's Citizens Energy Corporation at a 40% discount. Citizens, a nonprofit outfit, says it passes the savings onto the poor, aiming to help 400,000 homes in 16 states that would otherwise have trouble heating their homes. In the process, Mr. Kennedy happens to get a high-profile publicity plug. If you think you qualify, says the television ad that drew our attention to this partnership, just dial 1-877-Joe-4-Oil.

Joseph P. Kennedy II, the useful idiot helping burnish Chavez' image, is the eldest son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was of course the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy. Joe Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts in 1986 and served until 1999.

As the OpinionJournal piece points out, "Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez is an ally of the Iranian mullahs, a supporter of North Korea, a close friend of Fidel Castro and a good customer for Vladimir Putin's weapon factories." Yet the former congressman has no problem in lending his name and time to help defend this man who is trying his best to subvert Venezuelan democracy.

Kennedy founded Citzens Energy in 1979, and since 1998 has been its Chairman and President. From a description on their website, he "founded the non-profit company in 1979 to provide low-cost heating oil to the poor and elderly." Among other things, they also say that "last year" they provided free energy to 170,000 households, 250 shelters, and 37 Native American tribes. Kennedy defended his choice to accept oil from Venezuela in an article posted at Common Dreams

... those who have no problem staying warm at night should not condemn others for accepting Venezuela's oil. Rhetoric means little to an elderly woman who has to drag an old cot from her basement to sleep by the warmth of the open kitchen stove or give up food or medicine to pay her heating bill. ...

When our partnership with Citgo was announced last year, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman praised the discount program as corporate philanthropy. "It's a charitable contribution," he said, "and I wish more companies did it." Charities like the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Muscular Dystrophy Association receive generous donations from Citgo, but no one is telling them to decline the gifts.
...

Criticism of our program isn't about cheap heating oil. It's all about Hugo. While conservative interests in this country don't like him, US businesses don't mind his money and his marketplace.
...

Even though doing business with Venezuela has been very good for capitalists, the issue at hand is Chávez and his politics of socialism. Before we accept the characterizations of him as a socialist threat to our way of life, we ought to look at our own country -- ironically, a system of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.
...

So, sure, we'll distribute Hugo's oil. Doing so is called compassionate capitalism. Right now, our country's vulnerable families fend for themselves, while the well-to-do can afford to throw snowballs at our program from the security of their warm homes and offices.

There are many issues here, and I'll try and go through a couple of them.

Kennedy is fairly cautious in his description of Chavez. In this and a Boston Globe article that I found, he's circumspect about Chavez, prefering to concentrate on the program itself.

But the entire program is based on the logical fallacy that two wrongs make a right. Kennedy justifies what he's doing because some American businesses operate in Chavez' Venezuela. But what if they didn't? What if we banned them from doing business there, much like the embargo on Cuba? Would Kennedy then break off relations with Citgo? Of course not. The argument is therefore invalid.

Looking around the internet, many leftists defend Kennedy by pointing out that we do business with Saudi Arabia. Again the argument falls for the same reason. I have stated many times on this blog (here's my biggest post on the matter) that we must take strong measures to cut back consumption of oil so as to wean ourselves from Middle East oil. Others have too, notably many on the staff of National Review, a pretty conservative publication by any measure. So attempts to claim that conservatives are just a bunch of hypocrites does not stand up to scrutiny either.

According to Kennedy, the source for aid does not matter. Would he then have accepted aid from apartheit South Africa? Again, of course not.

Kennedy spends much time bashing oil companies, blaming them for everything from high prices to their alleged lack of charitable giving. But this Investors Business Daily editorial, carried on CNN, puts the lie to both those claims

What this is really about is advancing Chavez's U.S. agenda, a big part of which is to blame U.S. oil companies for high oil prices.

High oil prices do squeeze the poor. But oil companies do not control them. Dictators such as Chavez do. Eighty percent of the world's oil is held by inefficient state oil companies. Venezuela is one of the worst, producing its oil with scab labor since a 2003 strike, and it has also confiscated at least $1 billion in U.S. oil assets since then. Some industry analysts estimate that Chavez adds as much as a third of the cost to world oil prices. No wonder he wants someone else, like Big Oil, blamed.

And also, with regard to charity, the editorial points out that

Oil companies, in fact, give far more to charity than Kennedy's $25 million program. In 2006, Chevron gave $90.8 million. British Petroleum (NYSE:BP) gave $106.7 million. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) gave $138.6 million.

As for the "discounted oil", it's supposedly sold to Citizen Energy at 40% of market value. The problem here is that such a deal only hurts the people of Venezuela. According to the CIA Factbook, the 2006 per capita income for Venezuela was $7,200, and for the United States $43,800. Which such figures do not take into account purchasing power and are therefore somewhat misleading, they are still a good rough indicator. The bottom line is that Chavez is hurting his own people with this program in pursuit of political goals. That Joseph P. Kennedy II eagerly participates makes him a useful idiot.

Perhaps we do need to do more to help poor and disadvantaged people in this country purchase energy. Maybe federal, state, and local governments need to revize their programs and spend more money. We might even need a special tax on electricity or natural gas to pay for it. If this is what Kennedy believes, then fine, he should make his case before the relevant legislative bodies. He should write newspaper editorials. He should solicit private citizens for donations. I try to keep an open mind, and am willing to be convinced we need to do more if he can make the case.

But what I am not going do do is approve of a blatantly political program who's main purpose is to shore up Hugo Chavez, who is trying to undermine democracy and pluralism in his own country and others around the world.