Like Charlie Rangel, the New York Congressman, who said this about Chavez in his angry press release:

"Don't come to the United States and think because we have problems with our President that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state."

Holy crap! Who composed that sloppy joe sandwich of incoherency? Just break it down a tad and see what it looks like:

"Don't come to our country and think that you can come to our country and not think, that Americans do not feel offended, when you offend our President"

What a mess! I had to employ my handy-dandy Run-On Sentence Redundancy Double-Negative Angry Politician Tangled Over-Speak Translator Machine to decipher that no yes no mess Rangel calls a press release.

What he was trying to say was this: "Americans feel offended when foreigners come to our country and insult our President - even though we often insult the President ourselves."

And oh aren't we just the biggest pussies you ever met? We're always offended by something or another. It's the national pastime. We're offended by pornography. We're offended by flag burning. We're offended by raunchy lyrics. We're offended by anti-war slogans. We're offended by religious, ethnic and sexual slurs. Doesn't it just seem that Americans go through there whole lives in a state of constant, "I'm offended"?

Feel free to stab me in the skull with a compass point and etch a big fat bloody zero on my head should I ever feel offended by something somebody said about somebody I don't even know.

I love how Congressman Rangel delivers his statement like he's making a threat: "Hey man, you better not criticize our president on our soil or else."
"Or else, what?"
"Or else we're gonna be . . . offended."
"Your President is a douche."
"Um, yeah, ok, well better not say that again pal - cuz then we'll be very offended."

Oh yeah, we're badasses alright. Americans like to imagine ourselves as the overlords of the world, yet we pout like a crabby child king when our feelings are hurt. We don't mind so much when our President throws around his "axis of evil" diatribe, but call him a devil and you're instantly public enemy #2.

"Axis of evil?" "Smells of sulfur?" Doesn't all this Armageddon-speak just make you laugh sometimes? On one hand we have the American President who believes that there is an invisible man who lives under the ground who takes meetings with certain world leaders to discuss how to wreak havoc on the world. Then there is the Venezuelan President who believes Lucifer will, from time to time, take on a human form to make speeches in front of world leaders in order to gain support for his Mephistophelean agenda. Did you notice that Chavez made the sign of the cross when he delivered that part of the speech, as if to shoo away George W. Beelzebub's unholy fog.

How could anyone be offended by this nonsense? Especially a Harlem congressman?

In his press release, Rangel added, "Don't come into my country and condemn my president. If there's any criticism of President Bush it should be restricted to Americans . . ."

First of all, when did Charles Rangel become the arbiter of who gets to criticize who and where? Secondly, are we the biggest pussies on the planet or what? Foreigners can't talk smack about our President when they are on our soil? What are we gonna do about it, get all up in their grill and act offended?

And what's with this whole "soil" thing.

You often hear people talking about what you can or cannot say on different soils. For instance, when Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines bagged on President Bush at a concert in London, they said it was wrong because she was on "foreign soil." Ditto Al Gore, Sean Penn and others. Now we have President Chavez being lambasted by Charlie Rangel for talking the same trash Charlie Rangel talks on a daily basis - only it's wrong when Chavez says it because he doesn't live on the same soil.

News flash: It's all the same soil people. It's called Earth. Freedom of expression doesn't recognize the arbitrary lines we imagine to be above the soil because Freedom of Expression is a higher power than imaginary lines. Freedom of expression transcends all borders.

Furthermore, Hugo Chavez made those comments at the United Nations, the place where speech should be most free, where it matters most - at the world leader meetings, which affect everyone on the planet. As far as I'm concerned Hugo Chavez could have said that George Bush is the cross-dressing, necrophilic offspring of a homicidal nursing home intern who strangles the elderly in their sleep and Cerberus the three-headed, flesh-eating watchdog of Satan.

I suppose if I had to choose something by which to be offended, I would choose to be offended by the reality that free speech - despite the fact that millions have given their lives for it - is unfuckingbelievably still restricted. Here. Right here, in America, in the 21st century, openly, blatantly, without remorse or humility. And it still smells of horseshit today.