Anchorage Daily News

Venezuelan mischief-maker Hugo Chavez is back on the Alaska scene with another offer of discounted fuel for the state's predominantly Native communities. In the past, villages that accept the offer, made through Venezuela's national oil company Citgo, have been called unpatriotic, since Chavez is notorious for his anti-Americanism.

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Chavez

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Chambliss

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To which we say, "Any port in a storm."

Rural Alaska communities had to fill up their fuel tanks for the entire winter just when oil prices were peaking at about $140 a barrel. Residents are stuck with those high-cost fuel supplies for an entire six- to eight-month winter. They will not enjoy any of that $2-a-gallon decrease that Alaskans on the road system have seen in the past couple of months. In Bush Alaska, prices of $5 to even $10 a gallon are locked in until summer.

Under those circumstances, no Alaskan should fault another for taking advantage of any fuel assistance that might come their way. And the "unpatriotic" charge is especially offensive to Native villagers, who are justifiably proud of their high rates of service in the National Guard and other branches of the military.

Some villages may, on principle, spurn the help from this anti-American source. They should be lauded for that honorable and economically self-sacrificing stand.

But villages that take aid from Hugo Chavez's Citgo should not be condemned.

The U.S. government is happy to let Hugo Chavez's Citgo do business in this country. The U.S. government is happy to collect taxes from Hugo Chavez's Citgo. But if Citgo decides to pass along a little charity to U.S. residents who are struggling to pay for fuel, they're supposed to say "no" because it's an affront to their country?

Melanie Edwards of Nome put it well:

"Last time I checked, (Citgo is) paying corporate taxes to the U.S. Treasury," she said. "And we figure until such time that the U.S. government is so offended by Venezuela and Citgo that they're not accepting any more funding, then we're not being unpatriotic by accepting the same."

BOTTOM LINE: Try paying $7 a gallon for fuel before criticizing Alaskans who accept this controversial help.

Palin's Georgia pal

Gov. Sarah Palin is putting her conservative Republican fame to work in Georgia, stumping for Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who is in a tough runoff for re-election.

I wonder if she knows the true measure of the man she is eagerly helping.

Chambliss was elected to the Senate in 2002 by running one of the most reprehensible campaigns of modern times. He was up against incumbent Democrat Sen. Max Cleland, a Vietnam War veteran who lost both legs and his right arm to a grenade during that conflict.

Chambliss avoided serving in Vietnam. He got four student draft deferments, and when his number finally came up, he was medically disqualified with knee troubles.

In the best Karl Rove fashion, Chambliss the draft-evader attacked Cleland the war hero for being soft on terrorism. Distorting Cleland's votes about workplace rules for the new Homeland Security Department employees, Chambliss portrayed him as a tool of terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

Here's how the Almanac of American Politics (2006) described it:

"Chambliss ran an ad, much attacked in the press, showing pictures of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Max Cleland, and saying that Cleland 'voted against the President's vital homeland security efforts 11 times.' " (Those "vital homeland security efforts" Cleland opposed were intended to strip homeland security employees of union rights and other workplace protections.)

The man who couldn't bring himself to serve in the military said a man who left three limbs behind in war was a weakling who would turn the country over to terrorists.

Chambliss was a congressman during the 9/11 attacks. Congressional Quarterly's "Politics in America 2006" noted that Congressman Chambliss "quipped that one route to security would be for local sheriffs to 'arrest every Muslim that comes across the state line.' "

So there you have the fine American that Palin is trying to re-elect to the U.S. Senate.

Gov. Palin's eldest joined the Army and has been deployed to Iraq. As a justifiably proud military mom, she might ask herself why she is using her conservative star power to support such a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.

-- Matt Zencey

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