Chávez should get credit for economic miracle

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s critics have taken advantage of his nearly three-week absence for treatment of an undisclosed illness in Cuba to blame him for all kinds of misdeeds, but it’s time to give him credit for having performed a true economic miracle in his country.

I’m not kidding. What Chávez has done in Venezuela over the past 12 years is nothing short of an economic miracle: despite benefiting from the biggest oil boom in Venezuela’s history, he has somehow managed to turn the country into shambles.