Why all the fuss about Hugo Chavez?

It's interesting to see just how much coverage the BBC (once again betraying its innate sympathies, I fear) is giving to the death of Hugo Chavez, the divisive president of, despite its massive oil reserves,  for us in Britain a comparatively minor Latin American country, who has a very dubious recent record on human rights and free speech and who leaves behind him a disastrous economic legacy.
It's strange how the liberal West, wilfully blind to its double standards,  loves to swoon over a posturing, despotic, populist politician - with some very strange international allies - who chooses to dress up in military uniform - provided, of course, he's on the left of the political spectrum.  
It's Cuba all over again.
Having said that, we should pray for his soul. 
Whatever his many failings, he did try to help the poor, even if he leaves behind him the spectre of increasing insecurity ...