According to the Melbourne Herald Sun, a plot to assassinate Hugo Chávez by the Bush Administration was once again foiled.

Chavez says he has received warnings from within the White House that Washington is plotting to assassinate him or topple his left-leaning government.

Citing information from an alleged White House informant, Chavez told thousands of supporters at a campaign rally today that President Bush - the Venezuelan leader's political archenemy - has ordered him to be killed before he leaves office in 2008.

President Chávez has claimed this is not the first time the US government has tried to kill him, and not surprisingly, US officials have deny those allegations.

According to the Washington Post, Chávez linked the plot to his rival in upcoming presidential elections, Gov. Manuel Rosales of Zulia state. Chávez has vowed that he will win the December 3 vote.

Hugo Chávez, Rumsfeld's Public Enemy Number 1
On Monday, commenting on Venezuela's $3 billion purchase in weapons from Russia, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was not worried about Venezuela's military build-up and claimed that Venezuela was not a threat in the Western Hemisphere. However, he did make an amnious comment on regarding the concerns of Chávez's neighboring countries.

Rumsfeld and Gen. John Craddock, head of the Florida-based U.S. Southern Command, said several nations had expressed concerns about what Venezuela, under the leadership of leftist President Hugo Chavez, was going to do with the weapons.

"I don't know of anyone threatening Venezuela, certainly not anyone in this hemisphere," he told reporters after meeting with nearly all the hemisphere's defense ministers behind closed doors in Nicaragua.

"There is a factor here that is destabilizing," Craddock said when asked to characterize Chavez.

It is not surprising that the Bush administration continue to utilize the "terrorism" frame against Chávez. This is done so the public can continue have a sense that national security is top priority instead of realizing that the Bush administration is the source of threat, not the other way around. It would be a good idea to keep a close watch on the language BushCo is using to portray Chávez.

The Media's Disinformation Campaign
Although, the media gave very little coverage on the failed assassination attempt on Chávez, they, however, have gone out of their way to discredit him. Earlier this year FAIR's Justin Delacour had reported that our media tends to have a double standard when it comes to Chávez.

As this review of op-ed coverage of Venezuela suggests, this double standard with respect to "democracy promotion" is constantly echoed in major U.S. media, which are economically tied to those same corporate interests. In grossly slanting their op-ed coverage against the Chávez government and in line with Bush administration policy, the press demonstrates a degree of political uniformity that any "would-be dictator" would surely envy.

Recently, there have been a couple example of blatant misinformation by our press. According to most press accounts, it is widely reported that a week after Chávez made his so-called "Bush is the Devil" remark, 7-Eleven dropped Venezuelan-controlled Citgo Petroelum as its gasoline supplier.

Amid a growing backlash against anti-American comments by Chavez, the Dallas-based convenience store giant said Wednesday that it was dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo Petroleum Corp. as its gasoline supplier so it could launch its own brand.

However, this is not true. Back in July, according to Gregory Wilpert of Venezuelanalysis.com, Felix Rodriguez, CEO of Citgo, had announced that Citgo had no intentions of renewing their 20-year old contract with 7-Eleven because Citgo was losing money.

"[The reports are] a manipulation because ever since the month of July have we announced that we did not intend to renew a contract with [7-Eleven], which was 20-years old and that was part of a bad business deal for Venezuela," said Rodriguez in a telephone interview with the Venezuelan state TV channel VTV.

Rodriguez also stated that he is demanding that 7-Eleven clarify the story because 7-Eleven had created an impression that the decision to discontinue was theirs and not Citgo. This would explain why 7-Eleven oddly made a plea to the public not to boycott Citgo.

...7-Eleven warned against boycotts of Citgo because of its employment of 4,000 people in the United States and it role as a supplier of motor fuels to 14,000 gasoline stations.

"Americans with no substantive connection to Venezuela would be economically harmed by boycotts," 7-Eleven said.

7-Eleven has yet to issue a correction.

Further proof Chávez is painted negatively by the media. On September 22, the New York Times misreported a statement Chávez made in a news conference. The Times reported that Chávez "told a news conference that one of his greatest regrets was not getting to meet Mr. Chomsky before he died." News about Chomsky’s death sent shockwaves across the world because people assumed what the Times reported was correct. Once word came that it was a misprint, right wing pundits had field day trying to paint Chávez as being ignorant .

Later on Thursday, CNN's Lou Dobbs repeated the Times's line that "President Chavez at a press conference said one of his greatest regrets was he did not have a chance to meet Chomsky before his death." (Though Dobbs added with a touch of charm that, on the contrary, "We are happy to report to you tonight Chavez was exaggerating his demise. Noam Chomsky is very much alive and very much active in his both literary and political efforts." (Lou Dobbs Tonight, Transcript 092101CN.V19, September 21.))

What Chávez actually said at the news conference:

"How to achieve the defeat of imperialism... here is a good proposal, Chomsky's most important and original political work in a decade. It has extraordinary ideas. I have been an assiduous reader of Noam Chomsky like I have been of a North American professor who died recently. Lamentably I never got to meet him, girl. I did try to meet that man, but he was already somewhat deteriorated. Ninety years old, he was, John Kenneth Galbraith. I've read Galbraith since I was a child. And, of course, Chomsky. Great North American authors, great figures, intellectuals."

We are repeatedly told our mainstream media is balanced and unbiased; however, when comes to reporting about Chávez, it seems Justin Delacour is correct in his assessment about our media.

Ever since the failed coup of April 2002, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez has been catapulted to immortality. Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution has yet to be reported accurately nor has the Bush Administration's involvements to oust the Venezuela's leader.